Artsy Fartsy

I thought I’d try something new. New and scary.

(Don’t try this at home - close-up shots of your own forehead are really rather frightening.)

Before:
After:Wow, that’s one big forehead. I’m still getting used to feeling the hair tickling my face and I think that everyne is looking at me and thinking I have 80’s hair, but I should get over that.

Thanks to all the Halloween movies on TV this weekend, I realized yesterday that I now have Gina Davis’s hair from Beetlejuice. Great.

Will this be YOUR Christmas present? I don’t know, have you been good? I’ve abandoned the hat project in favor of the easier scarves. After bombing on Hat 6.0 I decided to seek professional help, which told me I needed new needles. New needles will be purchased tonight. Hopefully Hat 7.0 will actually fit on my head. Don’t you love this yarn? It’s called Licorice, yum.

Check this out: Tree ArtFirst cats were painting and then elephants were playing musical instruments. Now trees are drawing! What’s next?

Thanks to Drawn! for pointing it out.

OK, people, it’s time to help out your pal Lisa and possibly score yourself a brand new iPod. And, no, this isn’t one of those pop-up ads promising free iPods and Applebee’s gift certificates; this one’s for real.

Remember this?Well in case you need a reminder, one of my regular podcasts (and probably my favorite) is Croncast. I’m a fairly new listener, but shortly after I started, they announced a contest. They want to have 300 listeners by their 300th show, which should happen in early November. The way the contest goes, I recommend the show to you. You sign up as a new listener, paste some info into your iTunes or other podcast software, and you’re entered to win. If you’re the 300th new listener, you’ll win a new 30GB iPod, and so will I, since I recommended you. I’m pretty sure there will also be a random drawing of all the new listeners and that person, along with the recommender, will also win a 30GB iPod.

So what are you waiting for? You have nothing to lose. You not only get to hear some incredibly funny stuff straight from your iPod or computer three times a week - you could also win some lovely goodies! And to make it even better, the 250th listener and recommender will win an iPod shuffle (or similar small MP3 player).

Have you signed up yet? Don’t lie, I know you haven’t. This is where you make me look bad. There’s a weekly round-up of how many new listeners there are and the breakdown of who recommended how many new listeners. Waaaaaaay down at the bottom of the list is LisaLisa (that’s me) with 1 lousy new listener. And that was Luke, so it doesn’t even count!

See? Don’t they look like nice people? That’s my cut and pasted Photoshop collage of Betsy and Kris. I stole the photos from their website, hope they don’t mind.

I’m not asking you to join my Amway pyramid scam, I’m just asking you to sign up and try out a new podcast that you will most definitely love.

It’s hard to describe the show to someone who has never listened. It’s just Kris and Betsy talking about life. I’ve got it… it’s like Seinfeld. Remember Seinfeld? It was a show about nothing. The characters just talked about life and the crazy stuff that happens on a daily basis. That’s exactly what Kris and Betsy do, but instead of New York, they’re living in Naperville, IL. Instead of the puffy shirt, there’s puffy cuffs! Instead of Newman, there’s crazy Goodwill people! Instead of Kramer, there’s Zeus! Are you intrigued? You should be.

Ready to sign up? It’s easy.
1.) Click on the red rectangle on the right hand column of my blog, or go to www.croncast.com and click on the “300 by the 300th” banner
2.) Fill in the little form, and where it asks for the handle of the person who referred you, type “LisaLisa”
3.) After you submit your registration, you’ll get some code that you have to paste into iTunes - copy it.
4.) Now go to iTunes. Click on Advanced from your top menu. Click on “Open Stream” and you’ll get a blank window. Paste your code in there. That’s it!
5.) Now search for “Croncast”. Two will come up, choose either, they’re both the same. Click on “Subscribe” and download away! Then listen, laugh and get hooked just like I did.

Now cross your fingers and hope that we win! Mama needs some good news to brighten her day. A brand spanking new iPod sure would help.

I hate parking meters. Especially Hartford parking meters where you get 2 mintes for a nickel, 5 minutes for a dime, and 10 minutes for a quarter. Seriously. 10 minutes for a QUARTER!?

I left the restaurant and walked to my car where I see an employee of the Hartford Parking Authority circling my car. Ug. I walked over and said, “that’s for me, huh?” He smiled, tapped on his little ticket-making machine, I put my stuff in the car. He looked up and asked me, “why aren’t you arguing with me?” I told him that I didn’t see any reason to. He was doing his job, I did something wrong, I accept my fate. He smiled. I boiled inside. I really can’t stand paying the city of Hartford $15 for parking when they don’t wash my car or deliver it to the door of Max Downtown for me. He walked over to me and handed me my ticket. Just a warning this time.For being NICE! Ha! Finally, nice pays off. Check it out:

I know, Halloween isn’t even here yet, it’s way too early for Santa pictures. But I was hired to create a Breakfast with Santa announcement. I had to do it. So what do you think? Would you want to have pancakes with this guy? He’ll eventually be juggling candy canes and holly berries but now that I look at him, it looks like he’s being held up at gun point. Hmm. Better do something about that.

It’s time to hold up my end of the bargain. Karen was nice enough to front me the awesome purse, now here’s my end of the swap. Karen, if you’re reading, what do you think?

By the way, has anyone noticed how much I say “awesome”? What, is it 1989 again? If I start throwing in “like” and “fer sher” you’ll know it’s time to up my meds. I say “awesome” almost as much as “so”. Time to come up with some new words. So. Awesome.

You might remember that last year I painted this lady.

Well she’s back and she’s celebrating Breast Cancer Awareness Month with an event on Halloween.

The original clients asked that the lady get a spooky makeover for this year’s event complete with mask, black cat and bats and this is how she looks now.

Spoooky!

Our motorcycle trip on Saturday started out well. We were headed to New York for a campout and we actually left early for once. The day was perfect, crisp and sunny, and I was back in my groove, back on the Buell. Everything was going right.

Until this happened:
(that would be my drive belt - a small, but unfortunately very necessary part of motorcycle-riding, BTW, it’s supposed to be shaped like an “O”)And then this happened:
(that would be my dad’s friend Pete’s truck with me, my dead bike and my helmet hair in it)And then this happened:
(that would be my bike in my dad’s basement [and me with more lovely helmet hair] - the Buell’s not going anywhere this weekend)So, rather than complain and whine about having my broken-down butt carried up to the campout on the back of Luke’s bike, I did this:Yes, that would be the divine miss Molly riding on the motorcycle with us. I was afraid of her riding on Luke’s bike alone in a basket, but curled up in my lap on the back of Luke’s bike, now that’s a different story. That I could go along with.

We bundled her up in her fleece coat, then her Old Navy parka, then her harness, which I attached to a rope that went around my body. I sat her on my lap and we were on our way. I thought she’d get sick of the wind in her face and tuck her head inside my jacket after a while. Boy was I wrong.Two and a half hours of riding, one short stop for lunch and she was still hanging her floppy ears out in the wind. In fact she kept leaning into Luke’s back, trying to squeeze herself in front of him. She perched on the end of my lap, stretching her little neck out to catch as much air as she possibly could.

Once we got to Sioux and Voyle’s place in NY, Molly hopped off the bike and had a grand time sitting by the bonfire and hanging out with the crowd. She got to sleep in a tent with me and Luke, she shared (hogged) my sleeping bag and woke up the next morning raring to go. When we packed up the gear and I grabbed her parka she started to wag her tail and when I put it on her she jumped up on the bike, ready to go. She amazed me. She’s one tough little cookie and she’s fearless.

So if you were in the souhwestern part of Connecticut/southeastern part of New York state this weekend and saw what looked like a fluffy white dog on a motorcycle, you weren’t going crazy, that was my biker-pup, Molly.

More bragging to follow. Stay tuned.