That Time Of Year

Tis the Season! You know, when you go out into the roads trying to find those last minute gift ideas or whatever else you need to buy and then you wonder why you left the house in the first place?

There's been snow on the ground since November 22nd, which was when we had our freak blizzard. It melted in town but out in the boondocks where we live, it's hung around a little while longer. Giving a young married couple with no kids a lot of thoughts on what to do besides the obvious. I love winter, it's a great time of year, but you are limited on what you can do especially if you are looking for ways to conserve money.

So I am looking for things to do with my man (besides the unspoken obvious) that doesn't require us to continue to dive into the bank account. He's got the next week off from work, you see. So, it's list making time!


The Unspoken Obvious (come on, we're married)

Working Out (middle of week two for P90X!)


Horse Back Riding (we're feeding them anyway, might as well put them to use)

Surf Internets (certain sites are not conducive to maintaining healthy bank accounts, Craigslist comes to mind)

Watch movies (loves Netflix!)

Play Video Games (Wii, Playstion 3, Xbox 360, and older consoles, we have plenty to use)

Play Browser games (biggest time waster in the history of time wasters!)

Snowboarding (alas, money issues arise, expensive hobby, but we got the equipment as long as we don't mind making the trek to where the hills are)

Writing (loner activity, doesn't excite hubby much)

Blog about Random Crap (sure my readers would appreciate this, especially if they like me blogging about random crap)

Photography (what is it with men and taking pictures anyway?)

Bake cookies!

Sledding (damn, we need a sled. Hmm, see snowboarding)

Combine sleds with Horses! Or Snowboards with Horses!
Build a Snowman (wait for the powder snow to get the right consistency)

Fireworks! (we live out in the boondocks, this will likely be a new years thing since we're hosting this year and I've got a tote full of them)

Do Art (I got a whole room downstairs dedicated to a studio, as soon as I get it organized. . . hmm)

Organize Art Room (so I can do above)

Clean house (*sighs* yes, when you've got nothing else going on, this is probably a good one to fall back on. A clean house is a great feeling)

Work on long neglected Webcomic (best done when honey is not home, because he would undoubtedly grow bored)


Read (again, loner activity)

Visit a Bookstore (I used to LOVE doing this, should do more often)

Indoor Rock Climbing (got all the gear, if it wasn't below freezing out it would be FREE!)

Hot Cocoa, a Fire, and cuddling (can lead to unspoken obviousness)


So, that is SOME items I came up with. I'm sure I can figure out some more. So, any suggestions? Think childless married couple who often acts like big kids themselves, because that's us to a tee.

EDIT - MORE Items to consider!

Scrounge through crap and list on Craigslist for a little extra mullah

Rearrange furniture (though probably to soon to do this)

Clean out the garage/shop so hubby can have his space

Come up with to do list for little projects that need to be done around the house (honey's love honey do lists I know! Hah!)

Look for a job in this crappy economy so we don't have to worry so much about finding free things to do

School's Back in Session

So, its been kind of busy what with school starting back up and all. I'm in Management Functions (this class is going to suck), Survey of Research Methodologies (this class is really going to suck) and Digital Layout (I might survive this one). So all in all, this term is not one I look forward too. Bleh.

For Research Methodologies, I have to figure out a topic I want to write about for a Research Paper. I bet I could do one on blogging, lot's of good info there, but I'm not sure exactly. It has to be a topic I can take a stance on.

I was thinking out of the general topics to do one on are:

Women in the Military
Gun Control
Addiction to: (a list of items that people gain addictions to like Pornography, Alcohol, Drugs, Gambling, etc, but I need to focus on one)
Teen Pregnancy and Sex Education
Old and New Issues on the Internet (blogging comes in here)
Influence of Mass Media on Our Lives

We have a select amount of topics that we have to research, and these are the ones that gained my attention. I have to be able to find ten sources to cite for a 12 - 15 page paper. Research papers don't really bother me, its just that this is coming at the beginning of a mobilization, so if I can stay on top of things in school, I should be fine but no guarantees, especially considering this specific class doesn't allow me to work ahead. Bleh. Again.

So, I'm focusing on what I want to do for this class, waiting for my books to come in for my other classes, and I just caught the crud that's been going around. Fortunately I only work a short four hour magazine shift tomorrow and I got the weekend off to recuperate. Unfortunately, well, it's dumped about a foot and a half of snow in town and I'm sure the mountains are going to be fan-freakin'-tastic and I'm caught up indoors with a flippin' cold. I think I need to just try to find some time to relax and chill, drink lot's of Emergen-C and work on homework.

And my comic as well. Yeah, I'm updating it again. Unfortunately I can't remember my password so I have to FTP the files in. Triple Bleh.

This Sums Everything Up Nicely

Six Chix

My parents saw this and immediately thought of me. They say it even looks like me.

Right now, it is a true statement. I don't have a life.

At all.

And I have discovered that I can't model anythign in 3ds Max.

Halloween Aftermath

So Halloween has come and gone.

I got dressed up briefly for answering the door, but it became to much of a hassle to finaggle with the costume so I put it to the side and answered the door with a Ferret on my shoulder. I was a demon cow pirate.

I guess I'll put up some pictures in a little bit.

Meanwhile, we watched Night of the Living Dead (classic), Return of the Living Dead, (cheesy) and Evil Dead 2 (cult fave!). Mostly we had them on in the background.

All in all, exactly 27 trick or treaters throughout the night. I still have some candy left, which I really don't need.

Also, put up a Halloween Centric Comic. Lot's of laughs. Or not?

Art, and More Art

I just thought I would mention about my Gallery. I updated it slightly, because I got a whole bunch of art from people when I was selected for the draw in one of these art exchange live journal communities. I had them draw characters out of my webcomic.

I feel all special now. And I finally got the pictures listed on my Gallery. That thing is going to get pretty large at this rate.


I've really been in an art mood as of late, and not just illustration but really getting into the desire to do funky things with art, and add to my online portfolio which is a little weak at the moment. I've been trying to do some things with the colored pencil, especially after my Wacom tablet decided to play the 'will I work?' game and I found out I don't like to illustrate so much with colored pencils. But I think I'm going to really start focusing on drawing things more.

I think I'm going to draw a pigeon.

Extra Curricular Plans for this Week

Note: I posted about this earlier, and then my internet connection promptly up and died, which by the way, is one of the reasons why I haven't been posting to this thing lately.

I got talked into doing Karaoke tonight. This should be interesting.

I guess I'll take my camera and get a shot of me singing. I have a video camera that I bought that I haven't used once however.

Added Note: Did Karaoke tonight, had a flippen' blast! That is now one of the main things I get to do every night week, or every other week, maybe, from this point on.

Video to follow. I promise. Then you can hear me sing, I sang four songs in all, When I'm Gone By 3 Doors Down, Disease by Matchbox 20, Don't Speak by No Doubt, and a duet to Picture by Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow, to which I might add, I sucked majorly so, but had a lot of fun. I got videos off all, and I will snibbits from each

I think I'll take that with me tomorrow to the Lit concert. Yeah, a band with some name recognition has come to sing for the troops in the balkans. They have automatically assumed a level of ultra coolness in my eyes. I will give the laydown on Lit tomorrow night, or Tuesday morning, depending on how out of it I am.

Also, my Gee came in. For Kajukenbo. I'm taking my camera with me on Tuesday and I'll get some pictures of me doing some Roundhouse Kicks in the proper attire.

In other plans that have been eating at my free time, I've gotten to a point where I'm actually updating regularly with my Comic. Mt Lubojan (commonly referred to as Big Duke) has made a candid appearance within it. This is the mountain we see every day to the South of Camp Bondsteel. It really is a beautiful mountain.

I plan on going on the DANCON road march next Sunday. However, I've been tasked with Driver's Duty, and now i have to find somebody to take over Drivers Duty over so I could go on a 25K road march sponsored by the Danes instead. There will be pictures, and I will post about that, and I'll probably make use out of my neglected Milblog once again.

And the latest on the iPod, because several people have asked about it.

It works now. I threatened it, and it has since behaved. It hasn't paused on me once today and I've been listening to it practically all day too. It has been a good little iPod, I just wish it would be a bit more random in its song selection.

Note: As soon as I typed this, it started scratching up songs and pausing once again. But I don't know if it was becuase it was out of juice or not. Is plugged in and juicing up batteries as we speak

In work related news, this week we plan on having the website up. I just have to get the content from the other sections. And I need to learn some different scripts to put up some pictures.

Those pictures are going to be the end of me. I swear it.

Bulgaria is officially on. I even went shopping for some real normal clothes that don't say KFOR or Army on them. I've bought a lot of T-shirts while I've been here and none of them are wise to wear outside of the United States, and we aren't allowed to wear civilian clothes here.

Which means I got to be a girl and go SHOPPING for real clothes!!!

When shopping for clothes makes me excited, something's going on. Or I'm just getting burned out on Camouflage, Combat Boots and PTs.

Something obviously.

groundhog's day

Hmm, it's groundhog's day today. To celebrate it, i decided to recessicate my lagging webcomic which had promptly died, oh, about the same time I gained exposure on the internet, politically (which is something I always avoided with a webcomic. My comic readers are primarily of the liberal persuasion.) thing is, the comic is just a little bit younger then my blog. Fortunately, the comic is there in its entirity unlike my blog, which is missing all entries priar to this summer, when my entire website crashed and burned horribly. Somebody asked who the guy was. I have to admit that I can't draw myself with short hair and mad too and retain my femininity. Which is non-existant in the first place.

Though this comic is now not entirely true, just found out today that they are indeed sponsering MWR trips to Big Duke, which means I will get opportunities to Ski. Not sure about snowboarding yet, but if I'm allowed to ski, I'll take skiing.

Then I had to do a MASS-CAL exercise and promptly began hating cold weather again when I lost all feelings in my toes.

Punxsutawney Phil is going down, man, he is going DOWN!!!

Why didn't I think of this?

Hat tip - Army Times / Pvt Murphy's Law

Halloween, take 2

Halloween comes but once a year, and it has been the one holiday that I have consistantly done something with on my webcomic Creature, mostly because Halloween is all about dressing up and pretending to be something your not and Creature is kind of about that (though not so much yet, despite the fact of being nearly 3 years old).

Well, Presidential Elections come once every four years, and I had to take advantage of that. I knew there was a reason why the election is held on the first Tuesday AFTER HALLOWEEN! Let's combine the two!

However, a good deal of my readership is liberal, and I'm definitely conservative. So to appease both of sides of the political spectrum (and the mantra that Politics and entertainment don't mix), I ripped on both major political candidates.

I don't know if I did it harshly enough or not, however. I cut out one scene of a bunch of trick or treaters dressing up as Kerry, Bush and Nader (with a punchline for Nader that I conveniantly forgot how I was going to do), but ended up cutting it because I didn't know how to get it into the flow of the comic. Balderdash.

Still, something about the timing is off, it needs something more and I don't know what. Ah well, I still think its funny. And maybe even an irregular reader of Creature will get it?