Went to bed early last night (early being...12-ish....) because I was freaking...exhausted. X_x All the travelling took a toll on me, and then yesterday we went walking all the way down town to have luch. So, we did a lot of walking, and then mom made some seriously strong cocktails, so I was already half asleep by around 10:30. X_x

Today I checked Scuffers's fluids, 'cause he's been acting up. His oil was fine, but his coolant was low and he was !HOLYSHIT!-OUT of transmission fluid! So I replenished his fluids, and hopefully he'll run a bit more happily now. I have to keep him going a while longer, because it could be a month or so before I can get my mustang. They're really slow about sending out titles. >_O

Today we took an hour drive to go to a comic book store a couple towns over. It was lame. Not at all worth the drive. XP We also went to a little toy shop there, but it wasn't all that exciting. Mostly educational toys and what-not. But I did get some stupid-cute little Japanese erasers there. I'm gonna' send some of them to Holly and Ellen. X3 After that we drove home just in time to go to our town's own, decidedly not lame, comic book store (the other one didn't even have any new comics! XP ) and I picked up the new All Hail Megatron, as well as a couple back-issues I'd missed, a Voltron comic for Eric, and several volumes of the DW More than Meets the Eye profile-dealies.

After all that, we came home and I had a sudden epiphany as to how I could easily create a tool that would make my action figure repainting endeavors immensely easier out of some dusty trash laying around in the basement.

TA-DAAA!

I just cut some little sticks and tapered the ends with my pocket knife so they would fit snugly in revoltech joint-holes and cut some straws and slit them down the sides so I could roll them tighter to fit the li'l connector-nubbies on the hands and stuff, then I took an old crappy board and drilled some holes half-way through it so the sticks and straws could fit in them easily and be held upright. So now, I can put the various parts on the sticks so I can turn them every which way to paint them without touching them, and then I can set them in the board to dry without resting against anything. X3 It'll also make sealing them at the end a cinch! I love making useful things out of junk. Makes me feel like I've accomplished something. X3 I'm all excited now! I'll probably do some painting tonight. Hopefully the reprolable insignias I ordered will arrive soon so I can finish and seal my first repaint figure!

W00t! Been a while since I updated. Kind of a lot happened, but I’m not going to get into all the little bits and details. I should get back into doing small, more frequent updates so I won’t have to try to cram a bunch of crap all into one update. ^_^;;

Eric finally moved home from Tucson! I’m happy to have him back. I missed my big brother. Once he got into town, we drove to Kentucky to visit daddy. The 3 1/2-hour drive was kind-of nice ‘cause it gave me a chance to catch up with Eric. He said some really nice things about how it’s really important that I not give up on my dreams, and that he thinks I really need to find something that I love to do and pursue it, and that I shouldn’t just give up and settle for some job that I hate just because I need money and insurance. It was a nice talk, and he was so positive and supportive that for once in a very long time I actually feel like I have some hope for the future instead of feeling like I should just give up and accept my place as nothing more than another cog in a great machine, doing my repetitive menial task day after day.

Anyway, we visited daddy, and it was nice to see him. He didn’t look very well, though. He looked like he’d aged several years since I last saw him at Christmas. He was constantly coughing and wheezing, and he couldn’t get around very well. He was happy to see us, though. I was glad to spend a little time with him, and I hope I’ll get to visit him again some time soon.

We got to visit with Grandpa, too. He’s 92 now. He still seems to be in pretty good shape, though, considering his age. It was nice to get to show him my artwork, since he’s an artist. He does paintings and caricatures mostly. He seemed really impressed by my line-work. He said it was so detailed and precise that I should be a draftsman. ^_^;;

Over all it was a nice visit. The only part I didn’t like was puking my guts out on Sunday night. We went out to eat at a restaurant, and I made the mistake of drinking 3 glasses of tap water with my lunch. I always forget how sensitive my stomach is. I don’t think it’s that there was anything wrong with the water there, but my stomach is so sensitive that un-filtered out-of-town tap water always makes me at least a little sick. I just need to remember to drink only bottled water when I go out of town. XP