December in Review

And somehow, here we are at the end of December, already...

This month, I visited a friend at the USC Game Innovation Lab, & got to wander around while wearing a Hololens. Very cool!

While there, I got to use a snazzy mug that came with a custom-fit cozy (jealous...):

A coworker gave me this fun Christmas card that holds cookies, which I thought was very creative:

I experimented with making a mug brownie (verdict: not bad, as long as you include mini chocolate chips):

It was chilly, so I've also started crocheting a blanket while I re-watch some of my favorite Sci Fi & cooking videos. It keeps my lap warm, & helps me feel like I'm being creative again (& as a bonus: it's using up most of my random leftover skeins of yarn from other projects...)

Hope you enjoy the last week of December...

Walking (Small Steps)

I feel like it has been very hard to concentrate on (& define) my personal goals lately. And I struggle to be consistent with things I need or want to do in my personal life.

But there is one thing that I have been doing consistently since February: I have been walking a little bit every day.

Sometimes I only walk about 1/2 a mile at work. Some days I walk around my neighborhood and use my phone to take photos for my Instagram account or hack an Ingress portal or catch a Pokemon. Other days I just walk and listen to music and pretend I am in a music video. On rare occasions, I will leave my phone at home and just enjoy the breezes and the flowers along my route. Occasionally a friend or two will join me.

I have found that tracking an approximate distance walked each day, & writing that down on a steadily growing paper log, gives me a small but valuable sense of accomplishment. Maybe I didn't get to "X" and "Y," and maybe I only walked 1 mile, and yes, it would probably be better if I could get myself to walk a little farther...but I did get outside, I got some fresh air and a little sunshine, and if I was lucky I met a cat. And I added another day to my current walking streak.

I think it has really helped me to have a small goal. It doesn't matter how far I walk, as long as I get outside, even if only for a few blocks. If I want to add a couple more blocks for an extra half mile (or an extra Pokestop): Great!  If my feet hurt and I just turn around at the half mile mark: Still Good! I only went outside because I had cabin fever? Still counts!

It seemed like such a big deal to hit 100 days of walking in a row. And then suddenly I realized that I was about to reach 200 days, and I hadn't even noticed I had gotten that far...

Today will be 220!

Star Trek Turns 50!

I can't believe that Star Trek (The Original Series) aired 50 years ago today!

Star Trek was a huge part of my childhood. I started watching TNG (the Next Generation) in middle school--it was the one show I was allowed to go off & watch during dinner--& branched out to all of the other series from there. I would buy old TOS novels at neighborhood rummage sales, & they were always better (and cheaper) than the Star Trek novels I could find in bookstores. Most of my exposure to the original series & that crew was actually through those books. I would imagine conversations where I tried to explain Human idiosyncrasies & culture to Spock. And I was very sad that I could not apply to Starfleet for college...

I dug out a couple photos from the "Star Trek: The Exhibition" that toured around California in 2008, complete with set pieces & a simulated shuttle ride. Here I am in the command seat on the bridge of the Enterprise:

I think it's so cool that Star Trek continues to reinvent itself in movies, & TV shows, & fan projects. I am excited to see how the upcoming series will compare.

Live Long & Prosper!

"To Kill A Mockingbird"--Houses As Characters (Book To Art)

It's Spring again, which means it's time for another "Book to Art" project!  As you may remember, "Book to Art" is a global club that encourages individual readers and library clubs to take literature that they have found to be meaningful or inspiring and to reinterpret those books or exerpts as creative art pieces.  Feel free to check out my previous "Book to Art" project on Elizabeth Gaskell's "Cranford" here.

In honor of Harper Lee's recent passing, I decided to do a "Book to Art" project on "To Kill A Mockingbird," a book that has been a pivotal school text for many people around my age (**Major Spoilers Below!**).  If you have read the book, you know that nearly every character and situation that we are introduced to by siblings Scout and Jem Finch has to be re-evaluated as new information comes to light over the course of the novel.  The children (and we as readers) are frequently reminded, through the experiences of various citizens of Maycomb, Alabama, and through talks with their father, the lawyer Atticus Finch, of how important it is to reserve judgment instead of jumping to passionate conclusions, to walk in someone else's shoes and examine the other sides of every situation, rather than just choosing the easy or self-serving explanation, and to pick fights we know we can't win if we deem the cause or injustice important enough (and to control our tempers and refrain from boasting while acting like intelligent and courteous ladies and gentlemen whenever possible).

I went about this project backwards.  I drew the homes of 3 of the characters in the novel, before I went back and re-read the passages that described their neighborhoods and actual houses. As a result of this reversed process, I did make a few small mistakes (the Radley place is surrounded by oak trees that keep out the sun, and Mrs. Dubose actually sits in a wheelchair, not a rocking chair), but I am overall very pleased with how closely the images in my memory paralleled the houses described in the book.

In my mind, each "abandoned" homestead serves as a visual symbol of a family and its status and level of (non-)integration into the tightly-knit community of Maycomb County.  The Radley family keeps themselves apart, and basically pretends that their son Arthur Radley, whom they have hidden away in their house, has never existed. Mrs. Dubose is a house-bound elderly lady, due to her illness and drug addiction, but retains a tenuous connection with the community by sitting on her porch and observing and calling out to her neighbors until her death.  The black members of the community work in Maycomb proper, but live out beyond the dump and nurture their own smaller community.  Tom and Helen Robinson are a part of and supporeted by this sub-community, but are each further ostracized and isolated from a large portion of the white community when Tom is arrested and falsely accused of having raped neighbor Mayella Ewell.

Below, I present each sketched homestead, paired with passages from the novel that describe the house and its setting.

"The Radley Place" (Arthur "Boo" Radley & family)

"The Radley Place jutted into a sharp curve beyond our house. Walking south, one faced its porch; the sidewalk turned and ran beside the lot. The house was low, was once white with a deep front porch and green shutters, but had long ago darkened to the color of the slate-grey yard around it. Rain-rotted shingles drooped over the eaves of the veranda; oak trees kept the sun away. The remains of a picket drunkenly guarded the front yard--a "swept" yard that was never swept--where johnson grass and rabbit-tobacco grew in abundance...The Radleys, welcome anywhere in town, kept to themselves, a predilection unforgivable in Maycomb...Nobody knew what form of intimidation Mr. Radley employed to keep Boo out of sight...My memory came alive to see Mrs. Radley occasionally open the front door, walk to the edge of the porch, and pour water on her cannas. But every day Jem and I would see Mr. Radley walking to and from town."

"The neighborhood thought when Mr. Radley went under Boo would come out, but it had another think coming: Boo's elder brother returned from Pensacola and took Mr. Radley's place. The only difference between him and his father was their ages...Mr. Nathan would speak to us, however, when we said good morning, and sometimes we saw him coming from town with a magazine in his hand." --Chapter 1

Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose
"Cecil Jacobs, who lived at the far end of our street next door to the post office, walked a total of one mile per school day to avoid the Radley Place and old Mrs. Heny Lafayette Dubose. Mrs. Dubose lived two doors up the street from us; neighborhood opinion was unanimous that Mrs. Dubose was the meanest old woman who ever lived. Jem wouldn't go by her place without Atticus beside him." --Chapter 4

"Mrs. Dubose lived alone except for a Negro girl in constant attendance, two doors up the street from us in a house with steep front steps and a dog-trot hall. She was very old; she spent most of each day in bed and the rest of it in a wheelchair. It was rumored that she kept a CSA pistol concealed among her numerous shawls and wraps."

"If she was on the porch when we passed, we would be raked by her wrathful gaze, subjected to ruthless interrogation regarding our behavior, and given a melancholy prediction on what we would amount to when we grew up, which was always nothing. We had long given up the idea of walking past her house on the opposite side of the street; that only made her raise her voice and let the whole neighborhood in on it." --Chapter 11

"The Negro Cabins" (Tom & Helen Robinson)
"A dirt road ran from the highway past the dump, down to a small Negro settlement some five hundred yards beyond the Ewells'. It was necessary either to back out to the highway or go the full length of the road and turn around; most people turned around in the Negroes' front yards. In the frosty December dusk, their cabins looked neat and snug with pale blue smoke rising from the chimneys and doorways glowing amber from the fires inside. There were delicious smells about: chicken, bacon frying crisp as twilight air. Jem and I detected squirrel cooking, but it took a real country man like Atticus to identify possum and rabbit, aromas that vanished when we rode back past the Ewell residence." --Chapter 17

"They turned off the highway, rode slowly by the dump and past the Ewell residence, down the narrow lane to the Negro cabins." --Chapter 25

It was only after I had sketched the above 3 "abandoned" houses that I realized that I had been drawn to 3 characters that I felt were incompletely integrated into Maycomb's small town life.  I felt that it was important to add a fourth sketch for the Ewell family, the "lowest" status white family in Maycomb, and the source of a lot of the drama and unrest that takes place in the book.

The Ewells (& Mayella Ewell)

"Maycomb’s Ewells lived behind the town garbage dump in what was once a Negro cabin. The cabin’s plank walls were supplemented with sheets of corrugated iron, its roof shingled with tin cans hammered flat, so only its general shape suggested its original design: square, with four tiny rooms opening onto a shotgun hall, the cabin rested uneasily upon four irregular lumps of limestone. Its windows were merely open spaces in the walls, which in the summertime were covered with greasy strips of cheesecloth to keep out the varmints that feasted on Maycomb’s refuse."

"The varmints had a lean time of it, for the Ewells gave the dump a thorough gleaning every day, and the fruits of their industry (those that were not eaten) made the plot of ground around the cabin look like the playhouse of an insane child: what passed for a fence was bits of tree-limbs, broomsticks and tool shafts, all tipped with rusty hammer-heads, snaggle-toothed rake heads, shovels, axes and grubbing hoes, held on with pieces of barbed wire. Enclosed by this barricade was a dirty yard containing the remains of a Model-T Ford (on blocks), a discarded dentist's chair, an ancient icebox, plus lesser items: old shoes, worn-out table radios, picture frames, and fruit jars, under which scrawny orange chickens pecked hopefully. "

"One corner of the yard, though, bewildered Maycomb. Against the fence, in a line, were six chipped-enamel slop jars holding brilliant red geraniums, cared for as tenderly as if they belonged to Miss Maudie Atkinson, had Miss Maudie deigned to permit a geranium on her premises. People said they were Mayella Ewell's." 

"Nobody had occasion to pass by except at Christmas, when the mayor of Maycomb asked us to please help the garbage collector by dumping our own trees and trash." --Chapter 17

This project became a lot more symbolic and layered as I worked on it. In the beginning, I was only drawing interesting houses that belonged to colorful supporting characters! I highly recommend trying an art project like this with a book you enjoy.

Happy "Rounded Pi Day!"

Every year, my friends & I like to mark "Pi Day" by eating pie, if at all possible. We try to make or buy pie, and sometimes attend a local annual "Pie Day" event.

"Pi," or π, you may remember, is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, which comes out to an irrational number that is roughly rounded to"3.14159265359..." so nerds like us round that out to 3-14, or March 14th.

This year is a little unusual, in that you can also include the year to make "Rounded Pi Day"--when you round Pi to 6 digits, you get 3-14-16.

We nerds will take any excuse to eat pie & make puns!

It's Super Tuesday!

Did you know that only ONE THIRD of registered voters actually go out and vote in a given election? That statistic always boggles my mind.

If you live in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, or Wyoming (or American Samoa), today your state is having presidential primary elections and/or caucuses.

Go out & vote!  Let's hear it for civic participation!

Leap Day

Today marks one of the corrective features of the Gregorian calendar: February 29th is "Leap Day," which also means that this is a "Leap Year."

To review my summary from Presidents Day, the Gregorian, "Western," or "Christian" calendar is based on a solar cycle of approximately 365 days, and is a modification of the Julian calendar, which was based on lunar cycles.  With the Gregorian calendar, the holiday Easter occurs closer to the point in the seasonal year that the holiday occurred when implemented and celebrated by early Christians (near the March equinox).  This was achieved by adding an extra day to February every 4 years (sort of--the Gregorian calendar also has to be corrected every 400-year "Leap Cycle" by leaving out 3 leap years).

Another interesting result is that in most consecutive years, the day of the week that a given date occurs advance by 1 each year.  On a Leap Year, the day advances by 2.  To quote Wikipedia: "For example, Christmas fell on Tuesday in 2001, Wednesday in 2002, and Thursday in 2003 but then 'leapt' over Friday to fall on a Saturday in 2004."

Various traditions, like "Bachelor's Day," have been a part of Leap Day lore (and even law) in the past.  These days, it seems like the main impact of this holiday tends to be felt by people who were born on Leap Day.  While their bodies are 4 or 8 or 24 years old, many people joke that these people are really toddlers, because they have only celebrated 1, 2, or 6 official birthdays...

A recent Leap Day "tradition" that caught my attention and made me laugh was Neil Gaiman's "Take A Writer to Dinner" post.  This whimsical practice makes as much sense as any other Leap Day behavior I've seen.  And it encourages writing, creativity, socializing, and altruism!  And eating!

Happy Leap Day.

Some Trivia About Presidents Day

Okay, so I'm trying to use this not-very-accurate sketch of Mount Rushmore (which in no way captures the original, grave, far-seeing, "Leaders-of-a-Nation" stone rendition of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln, completed 1941), as a reference to United States Presidents and yesterday's holiday.  President Roosevelt is clearly wondering, "who is the gentleman that has replaced President Lincoln?"  But let us proceed.

Presidents Day (which is actually the federal holiday known as "Washington's Birthday," but is usually called "Presidents' Day" or "Presidents Day") is another one of our holidays that has evolved over the years.  The third Monday in February, Presidents Day originally marked the birthday of our first President, George Washington.  It has since come to represent, for many states, a conglomeration of both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln's birthdays (both of whom were born in February), George Washington and Thomas Jefferson's birthdays, or "U.S. Presidents" in general.

The holiday is furthered complicated by the fact (thanks, Wikipedia!) that the United States marks presidential birthdays by the Gregorian calendar, even though some of our presidents were born under (and lived during) a time period when "the colonies" and the newly-formed United States of America were actually still using the Julian calendar (introduced by Julius Caesar).  The Gregorian/Western/Christian calendar is a solar calendar that fixes Easter closer to the time period of the year in which the holiday occurred when implemented by early Christians (Christians had previously used a lunar cycle, and the date for Easter had a lot more drift during the 19-year Julian cycle, if I am summarizing this correctly.  See the related Wikipedia articles, or visit your local library, for more information).

President's Day is also treated by many as a holiday honoring veterans.  George Washington is frequently referred to as the "Founding Father of our Country," and a "unanimously-elected president."  But he was also a military general.  He is credited with creating a medal of merit for common soldiers, and it is his face that is featured on the Purple Heart medal which is awarded to soldiers injured in battle.

Washington and Lincoln's birthdays used to be separately marked as federal holidays.  These days, dependent on the state, many people do not have to go to work or school on the third Monday in February that is known variously as "President's Day," "Presidents' Day," or "Presidents Day," while some students get the entire week between Washington and Lincoln's birthdays as a mini-vacation from school.  For many of us, the day also represents one of our multiple long weekends marked by outdoor barbecues with friends and family, and heavily-marketed blowout sales.  Political figures give speeches, and it is up to us to individually decide what the holiday means in terms of our community and civic identity.

Fox says, "Happy Valentine's Day!"

Olaf says, "Happy New Year!"

Merry Christmas, & Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays, to you and yours...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Halloween Meets Christmas...

Did anyone else notice that there were Christmas decorations for sale in the stores before we'd even had Halloween??

This ridiculousness inspired the following series of creepy Christmas characters. Enjoy...

Santa wants to know if you've been naughty...

Rudolph would really like to know if you've left milk and cookies...

And the Alien Gingerbread Cookie Squad is coming to town...

Hope you all have fun tonight!

The First Day of Fall

Today is the First Day of Fall, which marks the Autumnal Equinox in the Northern Equator.

It is also Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, the last of the 10 days that mark the Jewish New Year.  Yom Kippur is also a day of fasting, so I am of course dazzled (even more than usual) by stray thoughts of FOOD.

In multiple ways, today can represent a marker of transition. 

I am told that yesterday was a Fall-appropriate 48 degrees Fahrenheit in Kentucky.  However, here in Southern California, this past weekend we reached 100 degrees both days (we ran away to the beach for cooler weather and kayaking).  We are fortunate in that the temperature has dropped a bit since then.

It is a time to reflect on the past season and/or year, and to begin to plan out the next.  I always find it a little too easy to dwell on the past, and prefer to exist in “the now.” Planning and choosing futuristic goalposts has never been my forte.  I suppose these traits could be seen as either a strength or a weakness, depending on how extremely they are expressed.

My current blog goal is to post the 2 dozen doodles I've drawn over the last couple of months, while I haven't been blogging (plus a couple that I hope won't be repeats).  And to write up a short post on the 2015 Masquerade of Jareth.

For now, let me just say: Happy New Year.

Jackie

Blog Adventures: ROW80

 

I did something a little different with ROW80 this block.  I made a smaller, simpler set of goals for the Spring block.  Instead of focusing on numerous, specific goals, many of which felt like chores to be avoided, I chose the 2 categories I'd given the most attention and interest to during the Jan-March block, and I assigned a frequency to them.  Instead of "3 sets of 3 exercises 3 days in a row, and get outside" I settled on "Exercise/get outside 5 times a week."  Blog, sketch, and crafting-related goals merged into "Do something creative 5 times a week." 

 

Then I posted my goals in April, and set them aside.  Also different.  Instead of posting about my goals once or twice a week, I gave myself a creative blog challenge.

 

My big goal for the April-June block was to reach 100 posts by May 3rd, the 2-year anniversary of my blog.  I though it would be a nice round number and time window to celebrate.  I haven't done tutorials lately, or felt much of a writing urge, or crafted as often this spring.  Or finished projects.  so I was feeling kind of creatively stagnant.  And I wanted to do something creative and try using my blog in a different way to meet that goal. 

 

One thing I had been doing with consistency (since my NaNoWriMo/DigiWriMo blogging challenge, somewhat ironically), was sketching and posting my doodles in my blog posts.  I had started playing around with sketching a little hedgehog interacting with various objects based on the letters of the alphabet.  I had about a dozen sketches done, from all over the alphabet, and I decided that what I would do was start posting that series. 

 

I ended up fulfilling two (or three--four?--lets just say, multiple) birds with one stone--I was somewhat regularly creative, I flew past 100 posts 3 days early(!), I published my series online on multiple social media platforms, I had the pressure of publishing the sketches to push me to finish the series, and I succeeded in finishing a creative project.  And I finally tried one of the ABC/April blog challenges, where you try to post something every day of April (I did take weekends off and continue into May, but the spirit was there!). 

 

It was really neat to watch my sketching style morph as time went on.  Early letters were very monochromatic and featured isolated objects on a white background.  Later letters became humorous and whimsical narratives set in multi-colored landscapes, and featured much more variety in scale. 

 

You can find my finished series here!

 

Now, I did experience the (inevitable?) burn out as I neared the end.  I was scheduling a few of the last sketches on the days they were meant to post, and I obviously haven't posted anything here since I finished my series 2 1/2 weeks ago.

 

But I blew past my creative and blog goals for this block :)  In addition to sketching, I have been altering thrift store clothes, reading, and catching up on movies with friends.  Good times.

 

Regarding my other goals: It's been super hot and muggy, and I have been burnt out from work.  Cooking and errands have been things to be avoided (less good).  But I am doing my bare minimum of stretching and getting outside.  I definitely feel the difference when I get fresh air, but I am having to fit more of it into the cooler weekend mornings and weekday evenings.  I really, really do want to up this goal and become more habitually active, but this continues to be a challenge.

 

Progress towards future plans/goals: This continues to be a bit too big and back-burner right now.  But I do feel that I achieved my overarching April-June goals of choosing to focus on goals that brought me enjoyment while still offering myself a new challenge.

 

APRIL - JUNE 2015 ROW80 GOALS

[X] 1) Do something creative: 5x a week.

[X] 2) Stretch, exercise, or get outside: 5x a week.

[   ] 3) Do something towards a futuristic goal: 2x a week.

[X!] 4) Hit 100th blog post for the blog's 2-year marker on May 3rd!

--This post makes 124!

And Home Again!

To start at the beginning of "Little Hedgehog's ABC Adventures," click here!

Z

To start at the beginning of "Little Hedgehog's ABC Adventures," click here!

Y

To start at the beginning of "Little Hedgehog's ABC Adventures," click here!

X

To start at the beginning of "Little Hedgehog's ABC Adventures," click here!

Memorial Day, 2015

Memorial Day is one of those holidays in the U.S. that means something different to everyone.  To some, it is a chance to get together with friends and family, barbeque, celebrate a four-day work week, and take advantage of annual sales. For others, it marks an important time to honor lost family members and friends.  The holiday is a marker that reminds us that the people who have died in the armed forces were serving this country, and were real people with dreams and loved ones. We do not always take proper care of our veterans, and this day serves as a reminder of how much they contribute (and risk). 

However you spent your Monday, I hope you had a good one.

If you would like some more information on Memorial Day in the U.S., feel free to check out the Wikipedia page, as well as this article.