Blah.

These days it's all I can do to stay awake. I seem to be fine in the AM, but when the PM hits, I lie down on the sofa and feel like not getting up until morning. Finding it hard to have energy to do anything, though I have plenty I could be doing. I sit down in my chair and want to slide down and take a nap. Sometimes I do. Wish Rich were here instead of FL doing research until Saturday.

Another Illustration

This is what has been occupying a good part of the week at the Vet School. I am between contracting jobs at Seyet, and got an email from my "former" professor, DW, asking if I wanted to try my hand at this. I had told him how homesick I was for the School, and asked that if there were an illustration job I could do that he didn't want to, would he call me. He did.

Dr. L wanted a picture of a horse for a Powerpoint lecture showing the central nervous system of the horse. His talk is going to be on a certain parasite that attacks this area. The symptoms vary depending on what part of it the parasite has affected. I have taken this picture and highlighted, in PhotoShop, the cerebrum, cerebellum, brain stem, the cervical spinal cord and the thoracic spinal cord. (In this picture the cerebrum is highlighted) It was a good exercise in altering the image with PhotoShop. I needed to do that. Dr. L could not have asked me to illustrate a more fond subject. I've been drawing horses for over 40 years, and you are looking at my Dream Horse. It's a Morgan.

Blessed Coffee...Alone.

When I emerge from my bedroom-den in the AM, nothing turns me from the path to the coffee machine. I usually suck down around four mugs of the stuff in pretty quick succession while perusing email, news and forums. But don't worry, it's 1/2-2/3 decaf.

The first cup helps me to be patient about waking up. The second makes me want the third. The third makes me aware of the world. The fourth gets me interested in facing it. After the fourth cup, my hearing begins to sharpen up.

Coffee is absolutely necessary. I am at the age where one's morning routime is set in granite, and if it doesn't go as planned, then I know I am either in a foreign country or Rich is away. Which he is at the moment, and not just him but Meg too. Meg's with a church group in Colorado for a week, and Rich is at a conference in DC. He will come home Sunday night and then repack and leave the Monday morning until Saturday for Gainesville FL. It will be Ian and me all by ourselves until next weekend. Ian went out last night leaving me utterly alone in the house. It's a weird feeling to be alone for such a long period of time. I'm not "on call".

Rich and I have been seperated for more than two weeks only once in our entire marriage. That seperation, necessitated by a trip overseas, made us realise that that isn't healthy for us, so now we have a limit on how long he can be away. Both of us begin to drift in different directions, even when he calls me. By the time we are together again, our relationship feels like elastic which has been stretched to the point of not regaining its original shape. It takes time for us to come back together the way we ought to be.

Unfortunately, this trip means he will be away on our anniversary. But I can't complain. Last year we went to Hawaii for our 25th. This year he had my engagement diamond reset into a sturdier ring (the first one was very delicate and I had taken to not wearing it for fear the diamond would be lost) with 8 smaller diamonds around it. I'm not one to lust for jewels, but this ring is understated and elegant.

Going to have to plan a whoopee dinner for when eveyone is back together.

It's YOU, Dr. P.!

Here is the logo that will perfectly express the admiration this veterinarian has for The Miraculous Animal Kidney (It's actually a dog's). Dr. P will use it to impress grantors with the beauty of the thing on his business cards and grant proposals and website. Said Dr. P., "I want a picture that will just immediately be recognisable as a kidney! No mistake about it!" The image as shown is actually about 30% larger than the original, which took about two hours to do in acrylic paint. I don't think the photo is as good as the original...the colors are too saturated; the original is just a tad more muted.

I Know How Rip Van Winkle Felt.

I sure am glad we don't live into the eighth century anymore. I'd hate to have to catch up with all the technology every morning.

Today I started my job as part time story-boarder and all-around artist at the scientific animation company that recently hired me on a contractual basis. A year ago at this time I wasn't even sure I could do medical illustration at all (and still am not completely sure of that.). Now I'm using an electronic drawing tablet to produce storyboards for life science animations. Me, the Computer Illiterate. All the other employees at this place are my childrens' age.

They seem happy to have me there, though, so apart from feeling brain-dead from doing the tablet thing for the first time, I feel good. And I still have time to make a decent dinner, do a load of wash or two, and post here.

God has been so gracious to me. He has planned all this, and I think I can see it. This only tells me, of course, that He has planned good works ahead of time for me to walk in. So, God grant that I walk with my eyes fixed on You, my soul leaning on You, and that I would turn neither to the right or to the left.