"Me Sumi and Roberto" Ambigram
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"Emma" & "Faith" Ambigram  |
"Stacy" & "Jared" Ambigram  |
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"Monster Golf" Ambigram  | |
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"Never" & " Again" Ambigram  |
"Gags" Ambigram  |
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"Mia Nicole Henderson" Ambigram  | |
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Ambigram Drop
Monday, January 25, 2010
Baby & Screen Printing Update
Baby Update ~
I am now at 17 weeks, about a week shy of 4 months. The last two weeks I was mostly plagued by dizziness (your veins expand in order to carry more blood, but since your body hasn't made it yet, you end up with super low blood pressure & a dizzy head). The doctor spoke of week 17 as this magical time when you start to feel better & are more energetic (at least until the 3rd trimester, when you have other problems & pains), and considering I was able to go grocery shopping & do the dishes without having to sit down for once, I am believing it!
A question for you girls in the know ~
how many sheets are we going to need for the crib? Is that something that is going to be spit up on & needed to change every day, or changed more like normal sheets? Do you need back up bumpers? (I've realized the bedding pattern is the only baby/nursery thing I'm picky about)
3 more weeks until we know the gender...
Screen Printing Update ~
I have been printing a little lately, but it is slow going. The owl screen is so bad that I usually have to spend an hour+ doing touch-ups on every print. Really not worth my time, but I keep printing a little here & there just to have something show up in the shop occasionally.
I just ordered a new brand of emulsion and am going to give burning the screens a go again. It will be a few weeks before that arrives & we are able to re-cover my current screens ~ everything is so pricey! I'm planning on burning a non-owl print or two first, I don't want to deal with those delicate lines to start out with. There is a good chance I will be also thickening up the thinnest lines on the owls, just slightly, to help keep the print clean in the future. As much as I hate burning screens, I really think I can get a cleaner image than I got from the shop I paid to do it last time (and I paid $50!) ~ keeping my fingers crossed!!
I think that is it for my updates, unless there is something you've been curious about?
I am now at 17 weeks, about a week shy of 4 months. The last two weeks I was mostly plagued by dizziness (your veins expand in order to carry more blood, but since your body hasn't made it yet, you end up with super low blood pressure & a dizzy head). The doctor spoke of week 17 as this magical time when you start to feel better & are more energetic (at least until the 3rd trimester, when you have other problems & pains), and considering I was able to go grocery shopping & do the dishes without having to sit down for once, I am believing it!
A question for you girls in the know ~
how many sheets are we going to need for the crib? Is that something that is going to be spit up on & needed to change every day, or changed more like normal sheets? Do you need back up bumpers? (I've realized the bedding pattern is the only baby/nursery thing I'm picky about)
3 more weeks until we know the gender...
Screen Printing Update ~
I have been printing a little lately, but it is slow going. The owl screen is so bad that I usually have to spend an hour+ doing touch-ups on every print. Really not worth my time, but I keep printing a little here & there just to have something show up in the shop occasionally.
I just ordered a new brand of emulsion and am going to give burning the screens a go again. It will be a few weeks before that arrives & we are able to re-cover my current screens ~ everything is so pricey! I'm planning on burning a non-owl print or two first, I don't want to deal with those delicate lines to start out with. There is a good chance I will be also thickening up the thinnest lines on the owls, just slightly, to help keep the print clean in the future. As much as I hate burning screens, I really think I can get a cleaner image than I got from the shop I paid to do it last time (and I paid $50!) ~ keeping my fingers crossed!!
I think that is it for my updates, unless there is something you've been curious about?
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Japanese Update
I realized that there are a few things I've not really given you guys an update on in a while, starting with my Japanese study. I've been at it for a little over a year now (almost a year & a month ~ is January really zooming by that quickly?!), and it's time to mark my progress.
Burnout ~
I actually ended up taking most of December off from studying, if not longer, and it was purely a lack of motivation that I brought on myself. Over several months, I had been switching around the way I was doing my flash cards in Anki, which meant I was re-typing everything in and then reviewing the same words & sentences over again from scratch (in a different format), giving myself a ton of unnecessary work. We are talking hundreds & hundreds of cards here. Already feeling pretty burnt out, every quiz and reading that I came across seemed so far over my head that I felt like I had learned nothing, and so I started spending my time elsewhere.
Motivation ~
Christmas, however, brought quite a few new books to my Japanese study collection... "Remembering the Kanji" vol. 2 & 3, "Making Sense of Japanese" (help with tricky grammar), and a handful of books my parents found in the clearance bin at a local Japanese bookstore (I can't believe they have one near their house!! So jealous). I decided my book collection had grown enough to warrant its own shelf ~ you can click on the picture for more information on what all is there.
Oh! And we also used some birthday money to grab a copy of Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten ($35 on eBay!) ~ it is like a handheld electronic dictionary for your DS, but for a fraction of the price.
Back to Work ~
I wasn't too excited about facing Anki after a month of not reviewing. The number of cards due was rather frightening, but it really only took a few days to get caught up. Since then I've added in a little new vocabulary and kanji, filled out some worksheets I found online, translated a few recipes from CookPad, and have really been enjoying it all again. And several times recently, when a blog posted city shots from around Japan, I realized that I could read everything on one of the signs or billboards in the photo. I may not be able to sit down with a book *yet*, but recognizing words like that makes me really want to start cramming more vocabulary.
So ~ after a year I have learned about 1225 words and 2075 kanji.
Another 450 words or so an I will be through the rest of the JLPT3 vocabulary, which I'm not expecting to take long. Now that I've figured out what works for me, I'm hoping to avoid any of the massive time-wasting I fell into last year, and learning new vocab just gets easier with the more I know.
Burnout ~
I actually ended up taking most of December off from studying, if not longer, and it was purely a lack of motivation that I brought on myself. Over several months, I had been switching around the way I was doing my flash cards in Anki, which meant I was re-typing everything in and then reviewing the same words & sentences over again from scratch (in a different format), giving myself a ton of unnecessary work. We are talking hundreds & hundreds of cards here. Already feeling pretty burnt out, every quiz and reading that I came across seemed so far over my head that I felt like I had learned nothing, and so I started spending my time elsewhere.
Motivation ~
Christmas, however, brought quite a few new books to my Japanese study collection... "Remembering the Kanji" vol. 2 & 3, "Making Sense of Japanese" (help with tricky grammar), and a handful of books my parents found in the clearance bin at a local Japanese bookstore (I can't believe they have one near their house!! So jealous). I decided my book collection had grown enough to warrant its own shelf ~ you can click on the picture for more information on what all is there.
Oh! And we also used some birthday money to grab a copy of Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten ($35 on eBay!) ~ it is like a handheld electronic dictionary for your DS, but for a fraction of the price.
Back to Work ~
I wasn't too excited about facing Anki after a month of not reviewing. The number of cards due was rather frightening, but it really only took a few days to get caught up. Since then I've added in a little new vocabulary and kanji, filled out some worksheets I found online, translated a few recipes from CookPad, and have really been enjoying it all again. And several times recently, when a blog posted city shots from around Japan, I realized that I could read everything on one of the signs or billboards in the photo. I may not be able to sit down with a book *yet*, but recognizing words like that makes me really want to start cramming more vocabulary.
So ~ after a year I have learned about 1225 words and 2075 kanji.
Another 450 words or so an I will be through the rest of the JLPT3 vocabulary, which I'm not expecting to take long. Now that I've figured out what works for me, I'm hoping to avoid any of the massive time-wasting I fell into last year, and learning new vocab just gets easier with the more I know.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Chicken Satay Noodle Soup
We recently made this Chicken Satay Noodle Soup from Rachael Ray, and it was absolutely fantastic!
Though I will never understand Rachael's insistence on using spaghetti for so many noodle dishes, especially when it is supposed to Asian style. Just buy some dang Asian noodles already!
Let's see ~ I used about 6oz. of rice vermicelli noodles (instead of 8 oz.), 1 tbsp. red curry paste (instead of 4 ~ I know ours is pretty hot, she must be using another kind!), no cilantro or lime wedge. There was enough filler for 4 servings, but enough broth for 5, so I'll be re-writing the recipe next time in an attempt to balance everything out, as well as throwing in a tip of my own. I'm sure Justin will be requesting we cook this again soon, though, so it shouldn't be too long!
Though I will never understand Rachael's insistence on using spaghetti for so many noodle dishes, especially when it is supposed to Asian style. Just buy some dang Asian noodles already!
Let's see ~ I used about 6oz. of rice vermicelli noodles (instead of 8 oz.), 1 tbsp. red curry paste (instead of 4 ~ I know ours is pretty hot, she must be using another kind!), no cilantro or lime wedge. There was enough filler for 4 servings, but enough broth for 5, so I'll be re-writing the recipe next time in an attempt to balance everything out, as well as throwing in a tip of my own. I'm sure Justin will be requesting we cook this again soon, though, so it shouldn't be too long!
Friday, January 15, 2010
Heart Designs
A few designs from long ago...
"Josie" Heart Design  | "JHB" Heart Design  |
"Leo" Heart Design  | "Mikayla" & "Asher" Heart Design  |
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Owl Parliament - Cherry on Tangerine
As lovely as the cherry red ink is, sometimes I wonder if I should stop printing with it all together. Why? Because the color does not exist on the computer! No matter how much I try to tweak it, I always end up with an orange-tinted mess.
I've heard others complain about the red problem as well, so it's nice to know I'm not being neurotic (at least once). It's particularly bad against the bright orange, but what can you do?
I've heard others complain about the red problem as well, so it's nice to know I'm not being neurotic (at least once). It's particularly bad against the bright orange, but what can you do?
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Hot & Sour Soup Recipe
We made up some Hot & Sour Soup again last week ~ that stuff is sooo good! The broth has a slightly different flavor than you find at restaurants, but not really better or worse, just different. Last time I felt like it needed to be tweaked, so I held off on typing up the recipe, but now I wonder if we just had an odd ingredient or measured something wrong that time. With no changes to make, I can finally share the deliciousness with you.
Recipe Here
I've also changed the name of my Asian Chicken & Rice Soup to the more appropriate Faux-Sizzling Rice Soup. Justin said the name was way too boring for something so tasty, and I did base the recipe on the Sizzling Rice from our favorite Chinese restaurant. It's such a popular dish there, you can hear it popping all over the restaurant when you eat there. I hate naming things!
And it is definitely soup weather around here! I can't believe it, but we still have a little snow sitting behind the apartment, hanging around since Friday. Usually everything melts the same day we get a few flakes, but several spots are lingering this time.
Recipe Here
I've also changed the name of my Asian Chicken & Rice Soup to the more appropriate Faux-Sizzling Rice Soup. Justin said the name was way too boring for something so tasty, and I did base the recipe on the Sizzling Rice from our favorite Chinese restaurant. It's such a popular dish there, you can hear it popping all over the restaurant when you eat there. I hate naming things!
And it is definitely soup weather around here! I can't believe it, but we still have a little snow sitting behind the apartment, hanging around since Friday. Usually everything melts the same day we get a few flakes, but several spots are lingering this time.
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