Chore Day, July 10, 2021 -- Laundry, Vacuuming, and Sketching

Another self-portrait, this time a profile without my glasses. Yes, I have huge nostrils…the better to smell you with, my dear!

I’m pretty much healed up from my rib and back injuries. I’m able to do laundry and vigorously vacuum the house.

My puppy is now 5-months old and accidents happen. He still hasn’t realized that he’s supposed to do all of his business outside. He’s been teething ferociously and I’ve been finding little baby teeth scattered about the house. He’s a big time chewer — all of the bushes in the yard are missing a few leaves. He’s a sweetheart and I love him intensely.

I also love graphite. When I make a mistake, I use my tortillon to smear it away. Graphite makes drawing fun, the way it was when I was in the fourth grade — it’s messy, too.

July 4 and Retouching

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Today was an out-of-schedule chore day. I pruned the new growth suckers on the mysterious bush in the back yard, then I removed two laurel bushes that my puppy keeps chewing on. Laurel bushes are poisonous to dogs. After exercising my green thumb, I put on my chef’s toque and made a cauldron of mushroom soup — it has 1 kg of mushrooms in it. I love mushroom soup. Afterwards I returned to gardener mode and irrigated the parched plants in the front yard. I use drip irrigation for a few of the less drought-resistant trees.

I also touched up page 29 of my Easter Island children’s picture book. The shadows on the Jimmy Jay and Dylan Dolphin characters were quite feeble. They look better now.

Chore Day, July 3, 2021 -- Back in the Groove

Bitmapped sketch of an old sketch from 2020

Today I was feeling well enough to do my chores: vacuuming and laundry. It’s been about four weeks since my fall. I’m now able to sleep on both my right and left sides, raise my left arm, and breathe without pain. My ribs are still tender, and that’s to be expected for up to 6 weeks after a rib injury. I’m able to do some gentle yoga flexibility poses so long I do them slowly. I call this progress.

The fire season is upon us. I have to be ready to evacuate at a moment’s notice. I’ve backed up my book to multiple SSDs, but in the event of a fire, I may not have time to dismantle my system and pull out those drives. So, I spent the day uploading the files for book 3 to iCloud. I have book 2 uploaded to OneDrive. The total upload for all of images in both books is about 20 GB. My upload speed it really slow, about 5 MB per second, so the initial upload will take many hours.

No drawing today. I awoke with an optical migraine and put me in a sombre mood. After I took a short nap — headaches make me sleepy — I awoke pain free. Sleep usually works for me.

Chore Day, June 26, 2021 -- Recuperation Progresses

I was able to sleep on my left side for about an hour last night. After sleeping on my right side exclusively for that last 20 days, I’ve been craving to sleep on my left side. In the middle of the night I woke up and rearranged my sleeping pillows under my chest and managed to roll on to my left side. I fell asleep and slept fitfully for an hour or so, then woke up and painfully rolled back to my right side.

And that’s the news from Southern Oregon.

Chore Day, Juneteenth -- Laundry and Recuperation

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Not much to say about today’s chores. All is quiet and very hot in Southern Oregon. Nacho the Pug has doubled in size and is now larger than Willy the Pomeranian. And, most of the injuries from my fall two weeks ago are on the mend. I can now get out of bed without screaming, which is a noticeable improvement. I will have to do some rehab for my torn back muscles. I should be back to normal functioning in a month or two.

Overall my mood has returned to my usual cockeyed optimism.

Chore Day, June 12, 2021 - Recuperation Protocol and Drawing 9-head Tall Figures

doodling hands and 9-head tall figures

My chore schedule as a little different this week. Because of my shoulder/scapula injury from my fall, which I’ve already mentioned, I restricted my chores to doing the laundry. To prevent aggravating my shoulder as it’s healing, I do not raise my left hand above my waist. Fortunately, my right arms and legs were unaffected. I’m one lucky s.o.b.

So far I’m dealing with the pain without pain killers. I’ve had muscle tears before that went into month-long spasms as I constantly stuffed myself with pain-killers and felt so good that I had the illusion I was healed, only to find that I re-injured myself as I kept lifting weights. I was an idiot know-it-all in those days. Now, I know that I don’t know much at all. I’m happy with that. Knowing that you’re clueless is actually a gift.

Chore Day, June 5, 2021 -- The Bumble Bee

No pollen on this bumble bee

Today was a day of many tasks: vacuuming, laundry, yard work, training the dogs, and sitting in the yard relaxing in the balmy breezes. I watched a large bumble bee harvest the pollen from the yellow flowers weighing down a no-name tree the yard. His rear legs were so thickly covered with pollen that he looked like he was wearing thigh-high yellow buccaneer boots.

Chore Day, Part 2, May 30, 2021

Today’s chores were to irrigate our trees, which we do every week during the summer, and fix the gate on our deck so that the dogs can’t run wild. I also took a nap because I was feeling a little out of it. I thought that maybe my fatigue is a side effect of my second Moderna vaccine shot, but after a 15-minue nap, I was feeling just fine. I don’t think my second dose is having any side effects..

After all those exciting chores, I had a chance to re-color page 20, which is still looking very rough. I’m sure that I’ll give this page more attention next week, when I’m once again a full-time illustrator doing Artsy stuff. Hooray!

Chore Day and Automatic Drawing

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Chore day again, with the usual laundry and vacuuming, but there was more. I re-installed the new gate on the deck so that it would lock properly; I drilled a hole in the kitchen cabinet for the Homepod Mini power cable; I cleaned and lubricated the sliding door that goes to the deck, and I drew this ugly guy and painted him ugly colors. What a productive day!

Chore Day, May 8, 2021: Puppies and Laundry

Today was an exceptionally choreful day. There were the usual laundry and vacuuming chores, along with puppy training. On my nights to walk him, I take him out to potty at 2:30am every other night. For the last two weeks I’ve been in a constant state of sleep disruption. Some days I feel like I’m going to keel over. Other days are seemingly normal. The lucky thing is that house training is a fairly short period.