Sisters On Sojourn

Alert!! Alert!!

In an effort to make life easier, I am condensing all of our blogs into one. We will be posting only at the journal revolution/visualchronicles blog now. If you are reading this post via a livejournal feed, please use this feed instead. Or, visit us at typepad.

If you got here via a link on someone else's blog or a bookmark, please visit us here.

they're back

They are back. And this is the back end of one of the pooches as it made a quick escape back into its own yard- through a new hole the beasts made last night.  My beloved husband and I were going to celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary a day early, but instead we'll be mending fences and scooping up dog poop from dogs that aren't even ours. How gross. I will admit, though, that the little dog stuck in the fence really is very sweet. And cute. But still, if I wanted a dog I'd get one. I want a backyard that isn't swarming with flies and poop. I'd like to sit on my own patio furniture without asking the neighbor's dog to get off of it first. Is that really asking so much? That should be a new acronym, I say it all the time. ITRASM?

brag, people, brag!

Some good arty stuff:

1. I am so excited to see that Karen Winters will be participating in a group exhibit at Descanso Gardens this month. HOW COOL! Artist Belinda Del Pesco is currently (or maybe it just ended) exhibiting there, too. I just love the art by both of these women. In fact,  the other day I celebrated the fact that I have successfully not killed anyone in the last week by treating myself to a masterpiece by Belinda.
2. Artist Maria Hammon is selling her beautiful photographs here. Awe, I love her!
3. Artist Brenda Marks is exhibiting her art at the Lunaria Gallery. YAY!
4. Claudine Hellmuth is going to be making art with MARTHA! on September 12th. We are so thrilled for Claudine.
5. Kimberly Kwan and her friend, Cori , are selling very pretty snack packs of art goodness.
7. Designer to the stars, Marissa Bowers, has updated her etsy shop. Her newest piece incorporates a bit of Eastern influence and that excites me. 
6. Author Rice Freeman-Zachery has a new book out called Living The Creative Life: Ideas and Inspiration  From  Working Artists. The book features "fifteen diverse, prolific and successful artists" and I am flattered to be one of the 15 artists profiled. I know there should be an umlaut on the e in Rice, but I don't know how to make one here. Oh no! I hope I am not contributing to the "they got my name wrong!"  thing. Rice's book was edited by Jessica Strawser of Get Real Greetings fame.

Do you have any goodness you want to share? Brag, people, BRAG! It's fun! And, we need some distractions right now. Give us some links to click.

finding love

For the last year and a half, every day we have clicked over to amazon to see where Visual Chronicles is on the charts. Amazon best-seller charts pretty much mean nothing, but to us, they are a sign that people still love us. It became a comforting spot in our day and it was double comforting knowing that we were both checking so it's not that only one of us is a weirdo freak who has to find love on an amazon chart. Visual Chronicles was always somewhere between 1 and 4 on most charts and that was great.  Ahhhh...people liked us! YAY! Thanks, you guys! Well, most people did. Some people really, really hate us. But, that part is funny, so it is ok.
This morning I made my usual clicks and  had the fright of a lifetime.Visual Chronicles was not number one, or two, or three. I felt like I'd been dumped by a really good boyfriend and nobody would ever love me again. Our Revolution knocked baby number one off its comfy spot on the chart. It was the weirdest feeling ever. It's weird because it's new and we just have no idea what people will say about it. Journal Revolution is so different from Visual Chronicles, yet very similar because it's still ours, in our voice and our style. I haven't really shown any of the journal pages or projects in Journal Revolution to anyone and that makes things harder, too. What if people laugh AT us instead of WITH us? What if people don't get our jokes? What if people are still mad that we like Coach purses? What if our publisher published the book with an error on page 108? What if nobody comes to our book signing? What if, what if, what if?
It's funny how when people worry, they worry about everything that could go wrong. I am changing my ways. I am changing the questions I ask myself. What if people relate to my journal pages and feel better?
What if people read Karen's words and get it? What if people read our book and feel empowered? What if people read our book then GO MAKE ART?
These new worries are so good! So, so, good.

potatoes or peas

Today We're FEELIN' GROOVY about:
~The Pentel Twist-Erase automatic pencil. LOVE IT! Neither of us is sure how to get lead back in it once it runs out, though.
~The way suddenly companies are calling prunes plums. I wish I was that marketing person who marched into the meeting and explained that prune sales would be way better if they started calling them plums and then people under 65 might want some. BINGO! The next time you are at the grocery store, look at the raisin section and you'll see all the bags of dried plums instead of prunes. By the way, there's a new blog all about marketing! Go visit, Ms. Brickman has a lot of good info and more is on the way.
~I finally found a shade of red I like for the front door on our yellow house. It's called Poppy and is one of the Pottery Barn colors for Benjamin Moore.
~A new issue of Blueprint Magazine. I love this mag. In this issue, they mention Snap Pea Crisps from Trader Joe's. WHAT? How come nobody told us about these? Has anyone tried them? Are they good or gross?

Our Bêtes Noires:
~The a/c in Karen's house is still broken as long as the repair man is not there.  It works fine when he's there, he leaves and it stops.
~Her dsl isn't working either.
~Everyone keeps talking to us like we're dumber than Paris Hilton and more gullible than Gilligan.
~People who I rarely ever see or talk to but who know I hate baby showers keep inviting me to baby showers and then get all mad when I say I am super busy that day, sorry. I'll send a gift, tho! I just can't spend any more time of my life guessing which jar of baby food is sweet potatoes and which is green beans. How come people aren't happy just getting a gift from someone? However, if this person was competing and needed support, I'd be there! If you're doing a demo somewhere and you need fans, we'll show up! If you invite us to a wedding, we'll be there, but if we don't know anyone and you seat us with weirdos at the reception,  we're likely to say we're going to the bathroom then just sneak out. We'll totally support you in whatever way you need as long as the need is not Linda at a baby shower.

saying yes

It's a new week and we're happy about it. I think the full moon + eclipse  made everything go haywire last week. It was like a mini Mercury in Retrograde around here!
This weekend Karen spent lots of time sweating in her house while she worked on some legal briefs and I spent some time not sweating in my house while I worked on some commissioned art for clients. I'd decided to take a break from doing commissioned pieces for a few months but these requests were so good that I had to do them.
The first request was from a client who loves Trader Joe's as much as we do. She spotted some cupcakes there and well, here are her own words:

Every day I look at the cupcakes. I don't dare turn the package over because if I knew the calorie content I'd probably never look at them again. They are so pretty. I truly love these little sprinkled bits of joy even though I haven't tasted them. Please, please, please make me some art with these cupcakes so I can get on with my life and look at what else Joe has to offer!

I couldn't say no to that. And, to make it even more fun, I made her art ON A TRADER JOE'S BAG!

In order to photograph the pretty cupcake, I had to actually take it out of the box it came in. Each cupcake has 400 calories and 20 grams of fat. OH MY BUDDHA! I was gonna taste the cupcake after I photographed it but I just couldn't do it. TWENTY GRAMS OF FAT! My client loves her new art and I have put prints of it in my etsy shop.

The second piece is for the client's sister whose cancer has gone into remission. YAY! As if I could say no to that, either.

Print

dog parties

The other day I was sitting in my backyard reading and I noticed an unusual amount of flies buzzing around. And dog poop. We rarely ever have flies in our backyard and we pretty much never have any dog poop because we do not have a dog. So, I decided all the poop was either because the universe really is crapping on me or that raccoons poop like dogs and raccoons do keep visiting us at night. Either way, if we had a dog, it would be my husband's job to clean the poop, so I left it for him to clean up. I am such a good wife. Yesterday, I told my husband about the way too many flies and piles of poop in our yard and he just kind of looked at me like I was exaggerating.  Ok, whatever. Why would we have fly attracting dog poop in our yard?
This morning I took a shower and got dressed and then  opened the curtains to  let some sun in and  survey the amount of flies. Imagine my shock when I saw this looking back at me:

This wasn't the only one. There was also a big scary German Shepherd and a weird scary wolf looking thing. All three dogs were not only swarming with FLIES, but they were running all over my yard leaving calling cards.

I took these photos through the sliding glass door because I was afraid the big dogs would bite me to death. They are the dogs that never stop barking that live next door. They'd bitten and clawed a hole in the fence between our yards and were living it up on our lawn. The hole was hidden behind our lemon tree and I wonder now how long these dog parties have been going on. It doesn't really matter. It just matters that I was right and my husband was wrong and that now all the dog poop is gone and the broken fence is mended. I don't think our neighbors are taking very good care of their dogs. They all looked mangy.

I wonder if we should take the neighbor's dogs acting crazy and Karen's cats hiding under a table as signs that there's going to be an earthquake. Just to be safe, we better stock up on diet coke and nutter butters.

screams of embarrassment

The curtains dance a minuet
Autumn plays the music baby
Come on hold my hand
Leaves are fallin' velvet splash
Only u and I can under
Only u can understand
            -Prince

There are only 19 days left until Journal Revolution comes out and deadlines for other articles and books requiring thought, planning, and actual art and writing loom. I feel like I have been sitting here for 5 days working while life is going on without me. It's been 5 days of me not answering my phone or emails while Karen and I have been instant messaging back and forth with great speed. About half of our messages to each other are work related, a quarter of them are about family stuff, and the rest about about things that matter more than anything. Totally important stuff. Important things, like that Karen's air-conditioning broke. That's very important. It's 112 in the shade here.  And one other very important thing: I found the video for one of our favorite songs from 1985 on youtube.  I still listen to Screams of Passion all the time while I am on the treadmill. I love this song. I don't really like most Prince songs but since Prince doesn't sing this one, it is ok.  I mean, it is ok until you see the video. I didn't remember the lead singer guy ( St. Paul?) looking like Barry Manilow with Steve Urkel's pointy, elbowy body in a flowy bathrobe until I saw this. It all came back to me. Watching his dance moves as he wiggles then bends left and right real fast behind the keyboard make me die of embarrassment for this guy. I shouldn't be the only one  watching this.

I've recently discovered these mini tubs of ice-cream and I love them. They are delicious and oh so cute! And they cost only ONE DOLLAR!!!
I've spent most of the last two days learning photoshop while getting caught up on the previous seasons of Rescue Me. Why did Microsoft have to discontinue Picture It, the one image editing program I could use with both hands tied behind my back? I am now totally confused about how extracting and cutting out are different (are they different?). Though, I am sure that Denis Leary suddenly became hot as a fireman.

we really are sisters

We’re really tired of the mainly useless texting and IM'ing acronyms people are using. It’s time for some really useful time savers! Here are a few we think should be in popular use:

TFHI:  totally fucking hate it, as in: Curlz MT font? TFHI
WIE:  worst idea ever, as in:  Took the 126 to the airport. WIE
HIH: husband is home-used as you stop IM’ing mid-sentence
BBE: best biscuits ever, useful if you live near Cracker Barrel
NITHTE: nothing in this house to eat
MBHD: major bad hair day
SPA: spilled paint again
GMP: got my period
IKTWH: I knew this would happen. It's useful because Linda says that every 3 seconds. Combine this with TFHI and you've got Linda's daily monologue!
WIWWTP: what is wrong with these people? It's very useful when texting about family stuff or those freaks you work with.
WRAS: we really are sisters
ITD: I'm totally dying, as in: NITHTE. ITD. Send biscuits and vicodin.
TFFFW: too fucking funny for words. Every conversation between us seesters ends in this acronym. Karen swears, too! It's way better than LOL.