80%

The infill on the fence took me six hours to install. My mom helped out a little here and there. I had to cut each individual board on the fence so it would be level across the top; because the ground was uneven.


Pictured above was the beging of the infill. The following photos are the finished product.





The old lady next door has been complaining about the change in our yard. It's funny- now she can't look at it!

Delays and moving onward

Today I finished the frame of the fence. I took a little bit of extra time because it was raining and I was cutting the wood in the garage. So, that proved to be time consuming. I was relieved since it wasn't as cold as the previous days. I wish I had more carpentry skills before starting this project. I made a lot of silly mistakes yesterday, that could've been avoided if I'd more experience. By the time I was screwing in the last few rails, I had a pretty good system down.
The neighbor kid stopped by to talk tattoos. He's been visiting my mom here and there to say hello and smoke a cigarette. I'm grateful that he visits her and I asked her to tell him I'd give him a tattoo for free. I just feel like it's a nice way to show him my appreciation.
Tomorrow is supposed to have a lot less rain; and I'm gearing up to cut the posts and hang the infill on the fence. I'm going to end up having to trim off 7" from each board. That will be fun for a 12'x15 dog run. Then once all that is done- I'm planning on begining the gate. I'm hoping to finish the gate by Saturday.

Building a fence

After quite a while I decided to come out to visit my mother in Minnesota. I've been working seven days a week all Summer long. So, naturally, once school started I had to begin planning some sort of vacation.
Plane tickets are super cheap- and my second cousins had been wanting me to bring out my equipment to tattoo them.
So the first day I was in for it & ended up tattooing for twelve hours straight. The next day was my second cousin's (Kella) 21st birthday. We celebrated it at my cousin Debbie's house in Zumbrota, Mn. My mom and I hauled the lumber she'd arranged to get from Kella's dad.
The next day was spent gathering supplies. It snowed. I can't say that I like the snow or the cold much unless i'm inside all snuggled up.
This morning was spent digging post holes then Debbie came by to help. Without her help, I don't think that we would have gotten all of the posts set in cement before sundown. That was awesome.

Help the dog win a contest!

Yeah I know, I entered in a cute dog contest with my baby. I could win a free trip to Hawaii!!! Help a girl out!
I entered my dog Squeeks in a contest on my favorite radio station, 98.1 KISS FM. You can seriously help me by going to their website right now and voting for Squeeks. It only takes a second and it would put me that much closer to winning the grand prize of $10,000! You can find my dog here: Squeeks ... and please vote each day, each person is allowed to vote once per day.

Thank you for helping me and SQUEEKS out!

why haven't you updated? this is why....

My computer died last month, so I bought an iphone to be able to keep up on the daily emails and other such garbage. The past moth I've been really burning the candle at both ends. Running a summer camp, running a household, and tattooing at the shop on the weekends. Yesterday was my first day off in a while- and most of it was spent drawing a giant dragon tattoo design. I've completely neglected my etsy shop for the entire summer but managed to still squeeze in some yard work and quality time with my dog.
In the meantime while I wait for my computer savvy friend to send me a list of the things I need to purchase to resurrect my dead computer- I've been downloading some really cool iphone apps that have kept me in the loop. I edited my reading list on blogger/google so the updates wouldn't take hours to read.

I might be moving on from one morning job to a new family (I nanny in the mornings for a couple of hours & bring kids to school) but recent tragic events have slowed the whole thing.
The doggie is doing awesome. She moved up to Tim's obedience class; and is begining to understand that we're the bosses. She's been so behaved! Such a cutie too!
Life is grand.

Please excuse the lull.

Adoption photo by LINDA at BADRAP. Happy family!

My computer is currently suffering from a dead hard drive. I'm posting this from my husbands computer. Hopefully I can recover some of my info that was stored on there. I guess replacing the hard drive is better than throwing down another 700 bucks for a new computer.

Gratitude

I have to say I'm grateful. My days are spent doing what I love, playing with my dog, and at night I get to sleep like a rock. (Awesome!) My friends are super cool and funny and sweet, my husband is da bomb, the dog gets to have full adoption status this weekend, and I have two days off in a row. RAD!
There's a song by The Queers "Everything's going my way" Yeah!
I have so many different things going on in my world, and they all pretty much make me happy. The money is coming in, the next step is the home. YES, the home.
I hoped the real estate bubble would burst in the East Bay just so we could afford a home. Is sorta did- and now- it's our turn.
I'm going to sing to myself this morning when I ride to work today. Yes!
Soon, I want to have a craft party, shrine-making.

More lists need to be made...

Time Flies

The new addition in the family has pretty much put my art world on hold. I'm okay with it for now. I sold the "Cheeseburger" Tiki painting I had up on my blog earlier. So, I'll have to repaint it- but in a different fashion.
Tonight I'm attending the second class for Oakland First Time Home buyers Program. Not that we're trying to be unrealistic- we're not even sure if there's a bank willing to even loan us the 120,000 we want to spend on a home. We are aiming low, so we can make it our own and turn it into our home. Yeah aim low. Our neighborhood currently sells at 450,000 for a two bedroom, even in this economy.
I'm happily drinking my "cafe freddo extra bold" so I don't melt down at 8pm like I did lastnight. I'm looking to go on a dog walk tomorrow morning early in the cemetery. Hopefully I'll be able to peel myself out of bed.

Tattooing has been real sweet. I want to go full-time at the shop; but I guess that's just a matter of waiting. Tomorrow evening I get to get tattooed by Jesse. I'm really excited about the tattoo. A cursed monkey paw. Woot!

I was thinking of something like this postcard for another one later on.

The New Hairy Thing in our Lives.

Squeeks, Squeekalicious, Squeekarella, Squeekie, Snorgaler, Snorkey, Snorter, Stinky, Farty, Squeekster, Squeekalikkie... The list goes on...
Aside from the expected second week of in house accidents- things have been everso sweet with Squeeks. She's got such a sweet personality. She's a bit shy, and we're working on that. it seems she feels much safer around new people when Jeremy and I are both together. We go out of our way to help her understand that meeting new people inour home is a great thing, and having people around is a really good thing. By all means our house is NOT a revolving door- but we do tend to have a couple of people over each week for work related things or visits for waffles and bacon. (yes!)
Daily we've been taking her on hour long walks in the Piedmont Cemetery or beach-side in Alameda. She's so expressive and good-mannered!
Last night, while she was with Jeremy in the dining room, I took the opportunity to take a shower- when I came out she had torn apart her "flappy" toy and pulled out most of the stuffing. It was all over the floor. I walked in and quietly smiled and looked at Squeeks. She was hanging her head with her tail between her legs. She was so guilty looking. So I said, " awe- it's a good thing to tear apart toys!" and took the remainder of the flappy toy, got down on the floor and stared tearing the rest of the stuffing out all while playing with her. She got the message that it was okay- and that she wasn't in trouble. What a little darling.

Squeeks! She's home!

We brought our cute doggie pants, Squeeks on Tuesday night. She's been so cute and very playful. We're working on her shyness and barking at neighborhood noises, but the Badrap.org friends have been a wealth of information on helping with this subject.

She sleeps in her dog bed on the floor right next to me, and wakes up to ask me to cover her with a blanket after she turns over. CUTE!

in the kitchen

in the kitchen
Originally uploaded by GAYTHA

you'll find wrestlers

Pics of the second meeting with Squeeks

A HUGE Sunday.

I start my first day at the Shop today. I'm nervous and a little crazy; I just need to get comfortable. Things will work out fine. I work 12-9 today. We'll see how it goes. I've been practicing script all week.
I just finished up with my doggie home check. We passed! I know I do run a tight ship here. Linda of BadRAP said we can bring her home next week! Woohoo! She's incredibly helpful and I'm so happy I could... Sqeee! (Pinch me, I "squeee'd")
Yesterday I wasn't feeling so great, but by the end of the day I felt better. Hooray!

The SUN is finally coming out!

VINTAGE COOL

New cute items in my ETSY shop...

1.5 million laying around? I'm accepting gifts!

The Eichler home I'm wishing I had the money to buy is on the real estate market. Only drawback is the location since I'd rather live in Oakland. But it's beauty will allow me to overlook that. It's being represented by Marin Modern. I found this on the Design Milk Blog

Putting it out there

Sometimes just putting yourself out there is the scariest thing there is. Yesterday I went to interview at a tattoo shop to help cover shifts. This is the first formal interview I've had since the beginning of my apprenticeship. Now that I'm wiser, have a portfolio and the experience; opportunities have been coming to me in weird ways. Friends, acquaintances, and through pure serendipity I've managed to connect with two shops in hopes for something part-time. I should be hearing back from them soon.
I wear many hats already. Working with children in an after-school program, selling vintage clothing and some art in my etsy shop, and tattooing in my private studio have kept me busy. But this may be the open door I need to further my tattooing. My humility has me a bit terrified over it all. Below I decided to post some of my portfolio highlights.

Tchotchke kitsch

Pizza and Salad here I come!

Like I said...

I won...

The Owl.

Saying goodbye to my babies

I've recently listed my baby Split- leaf philodendrons on craigslist. These guys came off my 36" tall "Philo Monster" Which I'm attempting to sell to my co worker who's trying to redecorate her home and add some greenery to it. I'm getting rid of these guys because they're all listed as "toxic to dogs and cats." And I'd rather have no worries that my doghter is going to eat my greenery.

Along with that, I've begun to dig up the crab grass in my back yard by hand. I shovel about 12-15" down and pull and sift through the soil to pull out all of the crab grass roots. I average about 8s/f hr. My major obsticles have been the fact I've ran into TWO cemented-in 2 foot by 1 foot metal fence posts that someone cut down and buried in 25 years of dust, erosion, crab grass, and litter. Through my excavations I've discovered a dental cast of someones teeth, 2 marbles, a child's barrett, two potato bugs, a fork, eighteen rusty nails, enough broken glass to start a recycling program, seven earthworms and five salamanders. I also unearthed a walkway that was buried under all this filth that has a horse shoe embedded in it with the year 1941 drawn into it. Now that's awesome. I'm keeping the walkway, as it provides a pathway to the brick patio that my husband has already done most of the work on.

Out with one hairy thing... in with the new hairy thing.

So last year I scored this amazing "Cable" rug by WEST ELM via Craigslist. It set off my ebony hardwood floors like you wouldn't believe. It is plush, white, foofy, and the hubby liked it on his feet. There was this major drawback that ended up finally getting the better of me this winter. The rug sheds. Not like tee hee, look some fuzzies here and there No this is straight up WAR with huge fuzzy wool lint bunny invasion from HELL. It shed more than having two big frumpy foofy dogs living full time on my black floors. Not even an hour after vacuuming and preening this gorgeous rug would emerge more fuzz. So I gave up my battle with the damn thing. I vacuumed it one last time before stashing it in my closet to think about what to do with it. Well, I figured it out. I'm selling it. So tomorrow I will vacuum, preen, and search out imperfections I can fix before a gentleman comes over and pays to take it away. I'm waiting to win a different rug on ebay that is larger, and fully AWESOME zebra print made from Oelfin (haha f-u you fuzzy rug gnomes!) As much as I love the shaggy wool carpets with giant nubs resembling marshmallows, I will not fuss over a rug like that ever again.

That said the hubby and I have decided to quit pining over every dog we see and actually go through the best dog rescue outfit we could find to adopt a dog. So we found one we have in our sights at Badrap.org. I will be devoting much of my social time to get to know, take classes with, and prepare my home for having a happy Pit Bull Terrier. Which brings me back to the rug. I mentioned the rug I'm ordering is made of Olefin is the most stain resistant and easiest to clean of all. (Yes!)
CAUTION! CUTENESS ALERT! Meet our soon-to-be Doghter...