The toothiest thing I saw today.

You may have received this in the mail from a major health insurance provider:

The Beav!

Cute. Beaver. Teeth. Ok.

Then you open it up and:

Better? More like MURDER!

The horror!!

That beaver is sure to fall to the grips of evolution now. Pretty sure he cannot swing an ax.

The glutenous thing I made today!

Happy New Year!!

This morning I am off to a crafternoon brunch hosted by TrinKnitty. I am really looking forward to it.

For the event I decided to make some bread from this bread baking book I really enjoy to read and use when I can. I made the Light Whole Wheat Loaf.

Let's look at the results together:

Oh look!
There is the baking book on the right and friend Dave's new book on the left.
Both books are by local authors and published by St. Martin's Press.

These would never get on the shelves at Rustica.
(Which has moved to Calhoun Village, by the way!)

I think they will taste better than they look and baking them was as fun(ny) as they look!

The Starstruckiest thing I saw today!

If you live in Minneapolis Ward Nine like myself, you might have gotten the awesome mailer below over the weekend. As much as I have a problem with the waste involved with everyday junk mail and this kind of campaign mailer, I got great joy from this one:

"OMGAWD! GARY SHIFF!!!!! I am not going to wash my hands for a month!
You are my FAVORITE city council member! Just don't tell Cam Gordon!" *

Now there is no doubt in my mind that Congressman Keith Ellison supports City Council Member Gary Schiff! What a relief!

And I am so glad that they are so glad to know each other. It is nice to see that a Congressman can have such respect and excitement about a city level legislator.

City Council Member Schiff looks so calm and cool with the attention and admiration too. I like that! I mean, having a dreamy Mayor who is always performing for the voters is enough.

His power is in his eyes, this shot weaken him.

Right?

OMG! I have the same shirt!

The All Power Rybak

Right.

Remember to vote tomorrow!

*Note that the Honorable Congressman Ellison has neither confirmed or denied this statement.

The Stickiest Thing I Saw Today (File Under: Ceating with Photos)

So I have not been able to keep up with drawing all of the beauty of humanity that surrounds and astounds me each day, I apologize to you and humanity.

I do have drawings, they are just waiting to be tweaked. I seem to have become behind at most everything and I am getting better and better at procrastination. Ask my chess friend, I just made my first(possibly suicidal) move in our game since like June.

Yesterday I made a snap decision. I grabbed my camera and I decided to just take pictures of some of things I have wanted to draw for you!

I hope that helps while I catch up on my art.

To begin, I have the house with the best fence ever. This fence is homespun and it is constantly growing, becoming more confining to the 4 X 7 foot plot of yard it protects.


I got lucky, because there are usually some nice, smiley elders sitting out in the yard, guarding the fence.

As you can see, one side of the fence is standard chain link, The other three sides are pure wire, rope, and various sticks. Some sticks are from nature, some from household goods, some from sports equipment, and some are unidentifiable from the sidewalk.

There are always new sticks being added in between existing sticks, and they have even started laying some flat across the top of the fence.

What makes me smile the most is that so much work is being put into protecting a couple trees and a lot of crabgrass. Those trees and that crabgrass are very important to someone. What's not to love about dedication?

The Lichtenstein-iest thing I put together to catch you up today.

Roy Lichstenstein is one of my favorite artists; I find his pieces simple and yet profoundly emotional. Plus, they are fun!

I am going to use his works to express my feelings of recent events in my life.

Thanks, Roy!

Just 3 weeks ago today, my 37 year old partner, Todd, had a sudden and destructive major systolic failure, aka a heart attack.


It threw our life into chaos, confusion, fear, and frustration.


After a week in the hospital, we had to face life with major changes and unknowns for what the future holds for Todd's health, his heart, and our life.


We both want to do all that we can to prevent another wallop to his heart.

We are so grateful for wonderful health professionals, advances in cardiology, and fantastic health insurance to help us with this goal.

Of course we are grateful for one another as well, we both have done our best to help one another cope and move forward. Todd has been very brave and willing to sacrifice little things to have a big life.


Dietary change was already on our radar, but now even more foods are dangerous and need to be limited or eliminated. I am now disgusted and angry at many foods.


Even though we have been out of the hospital two weeks, we are still catching up on everyday tasks at work and home. It is discouraging, but I try to cut us some slack. We have put extra emphasis on taking care of ourselves by relaxing, walking, and taking time for ourselves to focus on the more important parts of life- the things that make life grand.

Despite all my best efforts, I still feel out of control. I am drowning in a sea of new information, new concerns, and delayed day-to-day tasks.


I have been exhausted and out of sorts, so aggravated with things I cannot influence. I worry about Todd. I mourn the loss of our prior life and plans. Sometimes I feel very alone and scared.


Through it all, we have been so lucky to have the care and support of family, friends and colleagues. We are so grateful!


We are so lucky to have loved ones who have sent cards, called, brought flowers, made and shared meals, sent resources for sustainability, scrubbed our kitchen, put together care packages, shown patience, shared hugs, taken over managing repairs on our home, helped carry things, assisted in work, sent cook books, shared inspiring stories, LISTENED, and overall just have shown that they value Todd and I.


Everyone has brightened our lives! We are reminded that we can get through this and we do not have to do it alone.


Support from everyone has made me feel loved and hopeful, helped me to feel stronger. I believe Todd would agree.

(This one lives right by my office, and it is gigantic, I should pay it a visit!)

Thank you, everyone! You are not alone either, I value you and am here for you too! So is Roy.

The CHALLENGE-iest thing I saw today!

In the past I have posted some drawings from Monster Attack, the drawings of the son of the artist behind American Elf, my favorite daily webcomic.

Today this drawing and the story behind it made something burst in me, like a pin to a balloon:



This drawing is genius, simple, full of fun and imagination.

Also, this drawing also lacks boundaries of reality and the limitations of studied talent and time. This drawing is not grown up.

This piece made me realize that I have been too grown up. Not only have I been slacking on my drawing blog, but have been wrapping myself up in responsibility and worry. I have turned down my imagination and free spirit.



I am sadly willing to bet that some of you have too.

So, I am posing a challenge to myself and you, and your partners and your friends and you colleagues and your children, or whomever you feel like it sharing the challenge.

I hereby challenge you to create your own monster and send it in to me to post here, or just show someone you would like to see smile.

You can draw a picture and some background information like Eli has above, you could play in photoshop, make a collage, doodle on a post-it or what have you.

Do you dare to think outside the grown up box with me? To toss away worries of judgment or financial gain?

We know you can!

I wanted to make it a contest, but I did not want people to stress about bigger, better, best......but I still have a grand prize in mind if enough people want there to be a public vote......

What do you think?

Take a deep breath, let yourself go!


****Functional details, if you do not already know my email, or know me on facebook, you could post a link from tinypic.com in the comments, or we can figure something out!

The Advertainment-iest video I watched today.

I do not even know where to begin with this. It is happy and silly and sort of depressing all at once.

Happy because it is a marriage proposal video

Silly because it took place live on the morning news at a Best Buy Store on "Black Friday".

Sad because it took place live on the morning news at a Best Buy Store on "Black Friday".



Just the term "Black Friday" is silly to me. I mean, sales are awesome! Sales are red!

Proposals are very personal and to mazal tov them!

And congrats on those values that Best Buy. I hate that store, but it is a local business and we need all those jobs. That'll be $10 for the advertising, Best Buy.

The Turkiest Thing I saw today

Oh wait, I did not see this, I just drew it.



I drew it a few weeks ago, not 23 years ago, as you might be thinking.

I hope you have a lovely Thanksgiving!

Gooble! Gobble!

The listiest thing I saw today

A friend of mine made a list of 100 things that she loves. I thought this was a nice activity for this week of Thanksgiving, plus it is just nice to remember the things in life that make us happy. There are so many.

So here ya be:
1 111 bus

2 Advances in cardiovascular medicine

3 Aidan's chatterbox

4 American Elf

5 Antibiotic ointment

6 Apples to Apples

7 Aprons

8 Arthur Miller

9 Band Aids

10 Barefeet

11 BBQ sauce

12 Bean strainer

13 Bed

14 Bittersweet Chocolate Chip Cookies at Rustica

15 Black Beans

16 Blueberries

17 Bricks

18 Buddy Holly

19 Burritos

20 Café Miel

21 Cardigans

22 Carmex

23 Cast iron skillet

24 Chickens

25 Club Neo in Chicago

26 Colored paper

27 Contemporary art

28 Crop art

29 Daddy

30 Dancing

31 Deep bowls

32 Double features with Todd

33 Drawings by children

34 Effort

35 Ellie's excitement

36 etsy.com

37 Evan Dando

38 Fans

39 Father Hennepin

40 Floaties

41 Foam pillow

42 Fresh cut grass

43 Fresh snow mornings

44 Gift Shops

45 Ginger

46 Gingher Shears

47 Glue gun

48 Google Reader

49 Guernseys

50 Halloween

51 Jalapenos

52 Kemps Rocky Road Ice Cream

53 Listening

54 Lists

55 Local pizza joints

56 Louise Erdrich

57 Mad Men

58 Madonna

59 Magnets

60 Marge Gunderson

61 Maria's Corn Pancakes

62 Mary Janes

63 Maturing

64 Midtown YWCA

65 Mittens

66 Mono Correction Tape

67 Mother's stuffing

68 Motown

69 Naps in the park

70 Navy blue

71 New socks

72 Noah's sensitivity

73 Online chess

(my chess friend Jeff and I)

74 Online dating

75 Ornaments

76 Pint glasses

77 Polka

78 Postal workers

79 Pronto pups

80 Quarters

81 Re-purposing

82 Scandinavian design

83 Sea and Cake

84 Sewing machine

85 Sharing

86 Sharpie markers

87 Smiles

88 Target

89 Tartar Sauce

90 The Movies on 35th Street

91 Thermos

92 Todd's patience

93 Trails

94 Tweezers

95 Volunteers

96 Walking through dry leaves

97 Water

98 Wild Wild Life music video

99 Woody Allen

100 You

Awww!