The Senakams | Corgi + 3

Dogzilla!!!

It's been such a dreary day. It's cold (by San Francisco standards), it's wet, and it's dark by 6. I can feel my old friend SAD knocking on the door. I just feel drained and unable to operate normally. It's annoying but I really am that sensitive, you'd think I have a solar panel on my back. 

And these are the times I'm extra grateful of having a dog. I mean, short of advocating for Prozac in the city's water supply, I can't imagine anything else that can save me from a whole winter of depression.

Just look at these photos from last week. We were by the water front in the city, getting Bryson to do his usual pose-y thing, when we noticed he was up to something devious...

Was he really trying to eat a BEE mid-flight?!

   

 

 

I swear the way he was smacking his lips had us thinking he'd actually ATE that poor bee. But upon closer examination of the above freeze-frame slo-mo sequence, we're glad to see that the bee had deftly escaped the maw. Whew!

And this is probably what it looks like from the bee's perspective:

 

Whaaaa!!!

Seriously, you'd think we never feed him.

And here are a few more doses of anti-depressants from the day:

  
  

 

 

Think I feel better now :)

By the way, I've finally taken the plunge and joined NaBloPoMo at JuLo's urging! Nablow-what?! Well, it's basically a group of bloggers who'll dedicate a month of their time to daily blogging. Yup, that's one blog post EVERY DAY for a MONTH!

Lynn at Craftstew is also in this crazy deal. Well, it's not unlike having friends to go to the gym together- you know it's good for you but sometimes you're just too lazy for it, so it helps to have a friend motivate you kick your butt when you're being a slacker! We're gonna start on Nov 1, anyone else wanna join in the fun? ;)

Simple Baby: Gocco & Letterpress Card

If you have a keen eye, you'll notice in my side bar that I have a new item in my etsy store! Smells like another round of self-promotion? You bet! This is one project I'm so excited about, I'm not even ashamed to do that, tee hee!

I know it's been a while since I've written about my creative endeavors, not because I've been slacking in that department (although I'm guilty of doing so in others), but because I'm seriously spending every minute I'm not working or sleeping MAKING something these past few weeks... OK, OK, maybe minus a few hours playing Wii Fit (yup, hubby got it for me for my b-day- probably trying to tell me something, hmm...)

There are tons of things I've made that I haven't even had a chance to photograph or catalog yet, including a huge order of collage cards commissioned by Rita (aka Picasso's mommy aka owner of the beautiful home store, Make My Day) (Thanks!)

But this one I'm showing you here had me pretty excited from the minute it's conceived (*secret giggles*). And without further ado, here's one of my "new" project (well, I actually finished printing this a couple months ago), "Simple Baby":

 

A 4-Bar size (3.5" x 4.75") folded card on 100% tree-free cotton paper, with the background text printed with the gocco, and the birdie/nestful of eggs imagery letterpressed on the "trusty" vintage Vandercook press (who always choose to cough up blood when I'm trying to coax it to comply) .

And if it looks somewhat familiar, you're not mistaken- it's indeed meant to be a member of the "Simple Life" line, you remember bunny, right?)

Inspired by all the crazy advice I've heard dispensed by well-meaning people to new-parents-to-be, and all the expensive baby gadgets you can bankrupt yourself with, birdie reminds you to celebrate the simple joy of parenthood- a nestful of safe and happy eggs.  

The imprint created by the letterpress in the birdie imagery is quite lovely,
but not so well captured here on the photo. Oh well.

And if you can't read the background text, here it is (sorry for the run-on's, I thought it better conveys the confusing and complicated nature of such monologues):

“You definitely want that all-terrain high-maneuverability stroller with this quasi- reversible seat and no-touch folding mechanism in “pea soup”. And don’t forget the cup-holder attachment. It’s on sale for $900! Is that eczema on your baby’s face? Try switching to that homeopathic wheat-free melamine-free taste-free hypoallergenic formula. I heard baby acupuncture helps too, but you do have to do it 8 times a week. And make sure your crib bedding is an all organic 30% cotton / 3% angora / 67% hemp blend and launder them in 89.5 degree soapy water or your baby could suffer from horrible allergies forever. I don’t think you should buy those dirt cheap store brand diapers anymore, Heard they are stuffed with recycled nuclear waste from China. Do you know that babies who learn sign language are 4.2% smarter than those who don’t? My junior can recite the entire Shakespeare collection in sign language by the age of 2. It might be too late for yours now but do try the Mongolian Immersion Program. Your kid will get a head start in life and you can thank me later. And I heard European women routinely breastfeed until the kids are 5 or 6. That’s how European women stay so thin. Those baby swings are a big no-no, your baby will grow up with a lifetime of vertigo. Sharing bed with your baby can cause in-grown toenail…”

Whew, some crazy stuff people say! :D But hope you appreciate the humor and dig this new creation!

I'm also excited to report that another very chic brick-and-mortar store is now carrying my cards! Where? Sorry but you'll have to wait (Boo...)

Not that I'm trying to create suspense (OK, maybe just a little), but I have to go back to the store to take some photos of my cards actually sitting on the pretty, pretty shelves so I can share that with you here (I know that's super dweeby but I'm so psyched I couldn't help it!). More to follow, promise!

♪ It's the Most... Wonderful Time... of the Year ♫

Tipped by my corgi pals JuLo and Cathy, I enjoyed this fun little documentary on Animal Planet channel last night about Pembroke Welsh Corgis among several other less important breeds of dogs.

One of my favorite scenes about the corgis involve the corgi's owner vigorously brushing the dog. It literally looks like a snowstorm hitting the TV screen. 

And I like it when they summarize the breed, they say "seasonal shedding" may be an issue for some. Seasonal shedding?! Unless your season goes from Jan-June then July to Dec.

Seriously, for those of you who don't have one or are considering one, don't buy into that "seasonal shedding" crap! That's corgi owners' secret code word to lure unsuspecting people to jump onto the corgi bandwagon *evil chuckle*.

It's true that they "blow coat" (change their undercoat) twice a year when the season change, but you can expect quite a bit of ongoing shedding, enough to keep your Roomba very busy throughout the year.

As a tribute to this endearing quality of our corgis, I furminated him this morning and took a photo to commemorate what I call the corgi snowstorm. If I collect all the fur that he's shedded since we got him, I could have made myself a very nice fur coat for this winter :D

Corporate Re-org (Again)

Thanks to all of you who've shared your Myers Briggs type here! And what's all this ISTJ/ISFJ business?? All you accountants and lawyers and engineers and rational folks out there... makes me feel like an airhead! Or maybe opposite attracts? :)

(BTW, hubby is an ISFP. So I guess my "opposite attracts" theory partially holds true).

To some degree of irony, as soon as we came back from our training meeting in Phoenix, we found ourselves subjects of another round of "re-organization" in our company (that's corporate code word for restructuring with possibilities of lay-off's).

Yup, I said the "L" word. And that's the second round in the past 10 months.

Well, with a palpable air of anxiety, we were relieved to learn on a Monday morning conference call with that the axe fell somewhere else in the company this time.

We're safe, whew! For now.

It almost make me feel a bit guilty to think that, realizing hundreds of hard-working people elsewhere in our company are being handed their pink slip. And I'm sitting here complaining about not having enough time to do more gocco'ing and worrying about stupid stuff like Cosmo-bots hijacking my blog...

Isn't that totally selfish and self-indulgent in these hard economic times? Do I need to give myself a big, fat slap?? (OK, I'm not really sure I'm ready for your answer...)

Hmm, things seems to be getting a bit heavy here. To lighten things up, here're some photos of Bryson and friends having a fun outing at nearby Redwood Regional Park (Bryson saves the day again, yay!)

Bryson, Picasso and Chorizo burning some rubber on this lovely redwood trail.

 
Face off! (with Chorizo as referee)

 
:: ¡Chorizo for President! ::

 
Low dogs celebrating a successful walk (despite of a hairy situation involving one of them sliding off a 2-storey-"cliff"... No one got hurt, and said-canine pulled an amazing recovery climbing all the way back up by himself with cheers from his buddies. Disaster averted!)

Go to our Flickr album for more pix of the day!

ENFP?!

No, I'm not swearing at you. Don't worry, I'll never do that.

I just came back from a training meeting in Phoenix, where we had to do that Myers Briggs personality test again. You know, that one that you've probably done in college, that supposedly tells you if you're an introvert or extrovert/ planner or procrastinator (which really makes for great excuses whenever you're late for a project) among other personality "types"?

As I've done this test quite a few times before, all I had in mind when I went into the training was "make it a painless 8 hours, pleaaaase", and "finish up early so I can take the earlier flight home".

But I have to say that the company did a good job this time picking a trainer that was able to make this all relevant and useful. Let's say I didn't catch the earlier flight and I didn't mind at all (which is a huge compliment for any training meeting).

So, you must be wondering, what personality type am I? We answered a few pages of Yes/No questions on our preferences (i.e. not what we actually do, which is learned, but rather what we prefer to do, which is innate), and got rated on 4 dimensions. And the results are: *drum roll...*

I'm an ENFP:

Extrovert ("gregarious" and "expressive")
iNtuition (original thinker/ dreamer)
Feeling (an illogical, empty-headed bleeding heart, *eek*; P.S. I actually score only mildly favoring "Feeling" to "Thinking")
Perceiving (an indecisive procrastinator; surprise, surprise).

Which for the most part looks fairly accurate. I don't think it's even changed at all since my first "test" in college, which ironically told me I probably should NOT go into the field I'm in right now (science). But my inner ENFP tells me life happens for a reason and things will always work itself out. As in having a science career then finding second wind in a creative one and thriving in juggling the two. Wow, see how accurate it is! :P

I'd love to know what "type" you are!

If you haven't done it before, here's a free version of the test you can try online. Don't forget to share here :)

Oh, and as promised, here are the rest of the New England photos (click anywhere on the mosaic to open the Flickr set):

1. Couple, 2. 3.5 Corgis, 3. Father and daughter, 4. New England architecture, 5. Portland Museum of Art, 6. Pumpkin sees, 7. Lobster!, 8. Kayaking, 9. Paddle, 10. Going kayaking, 11. Falmouth House, 12. Team work, 13. Father and daughter, 14. Acadia National park, 15. Dancing weather, 16. Acadia shoreline, 17. Bar Habor, ME, 18. Blueberry!, 19. Groom, 20. Gorgeous bride, 21. Uncle Allan, 22. Me and my folks, 23. A Clear Fall Sky, 24. Flaming foliage, 25. Generations

By the way, I was tagged by the talented artist/teacher TAMS to divulge 7 "fun strange little facts" about myself (if you ask! :D). I guess my Myers Briggs personality would count as the first one? I need to think some more about the rest. More to come :)

Back from Mooseland

We're finally back from our trip to Maine! I know, we were so rushed to get ready we didn't even get to bid farewell here before we left... me bad!

And it was such a whirlwind of a trip. In 6 short days, we visited a friend up in Bangor, ME (rustic), saw the Acadia National Park (serene), visited a cousin's family in Boston (fun!), attended another cousin's wedding in Portland, ME (beautiful), and caught a nasty bug (yuck).

Afflicted with my current ailment, I gotta keep this post short so I can catch some much-needed snooze. Plus I'm taking off again tomorrow to Phoenix for work (argh).

   

Left: Flaming fall foliage, Falmouth, ME, just north of Portland. If there's one thing I miss about having "seasons", this would be it.

Right: Running into a herd of New England corgis in Bar Harbor, ME! The one in the back is a corgi/ Jack-Russell terrier mix, that crazy hair's too cute!

  

Left: Acadia National Park, ME- one of the oldest and largest on the east coast, but seems tiny compared to the sprawling ones like Yosemite and Yellowstone we're accustomed to in the west.

Right: This is the gorgeous house on the water my family stayed at in Falmouth, ME while attending the wedding. At $4K/week, we made sure we sat in every room and enjoyed the view as much as we can :D

 

The Falmouth house has beach access in the back and got these 2 kayaks lying around in the back. So the day before the wedding, my cousin who was about to get married the next day and hubby who can't really swim decided it's a good idea to take these out for a ride. Almost sounds like the beginning of a joke. (They did both come back safely though)

 

Hubby took full advantage of one of the delicacies of Maine in this breakfast in Bar Harbor- blueberry pancakes with blueberry syrup, oh, and a blueberry muffin on the side, please.

 

Another delicacy of Maine- lobster! Apparently they're so ubiquitous they're even used to make compost. I guess with all the tourists like us chowing down on pounds and pounds of lobsters, you gotta find some way to get rid of the shells. Great recycling idea :)

 

The beautiful couple outside the church just after the ceremony. I still get sentimental at every wedding I go to...

OK, I know I said I'm gonna try to keep this short but looks like once again, I've failed. Brevity is just not my thing. But now, I really gotta go catch my beauty sleep. Hope this gives you a flavor of our New England rendevous. I'll post some pix on Flickr once I get back from Phoenix. Bye, again! :~(

Another Gocco Swap

After numerous futile attempts in identifying my cyber Russian stalker, I re-focused my attention to something more productive this weekend- I finished my 2nd gocco swap project! Yippee!!

You'll probably remember the last one- which was great, creating and receiving all the goodies, but deciding I have enough deadlines with my day job (which I already barely meet), I thought I'll take a break before subjecting myself to any other activities with deadlines involved...

But you know how it goes. As soon as I said no more, another swap actually found me in the little World of Gocco. And before I knew it, "Count me in!" came out of my mouth and now I find myself part of another gocco swap!

And this time, I told myself I'm not going to procrastinate. Well, I don't really have a choice- the deadline falls on a day when I'm in the middle of a family trip next week in Maine. So guess what, I buckled down (and resisted the temptation to catch the last episode of Project Runway on Tivo... a HUGE accomplishment) and finished my project ahead of time! Yay!

There's no limit to the subject this time around, as long as it is a 4 x 6 postcard. I decided I'll make something in the Real Corgis Speak Welsh line, just coz I think we need to spread more corgi love in the world.

And when it came to choosing some wise words for King Corgi to dispense on this card, I was inspired by all the quality time I get to spend with our IT folks this past week trying to get my computer fixed...

And thus born the "Gwahherdi E-Bost!" tag line- which is Welsh for (or at least I hope it is Welsh for) "E-mails are Prohibited!". It really exemplifies my the corgi's longing of a simpler world in this technological era.

    
Left: The 2 screens used for the 3-color front and one for the back of the postcard.
Right: Mixing a dark purple color w/ some red on a wax paper wrapped art board (great mixing surface! easy clean up!)

 
This is printed on the same paper as my business card- a thick and lofty 200-lb Bockingford cotton paper. Seems like a good weight for a postcard.

But as I found out it also sucks up TONS of ink, which created a problem at the end when I have to press REAL hard to get the solid coverage in the purple, but lost some of the details in the corgi face. Next time I'll definitely separate these big solid areas and more delicate designs on 2 screens. Lesson learned.

 
Ta-dah! In its full glory- front and back. BTW, King Corgi's silly little celtic crown is printed in gold- it doesn't show up real well in the photos here, taken in a low-light late afternoon.

I don't think I'll be getting the other cards back till about the last week of October. In the meantime, you can get a sneak peek of my swapmate's process here on Flickr. So exciting, hee :D

 

The Spy Who Loved Me?

I'm sure those of you who keeps a blog check your visitors' log once in a while to see who's reading your blog. Or to see if you're being stalked.

Well, I'm afraid that's what I found out when I came home from Toronto...

OK, get this. Oh, and be warned, it's a bit creepy.

So. My laptop's finally fixed, so I decided to see if anyone even read my blog when I'm not around. And when I look into my blog's stats, I noticed that over the few days while I was in Toronto, I have over 10x my normal traffic on the blog. Not more visitors, just more views from this visitor that I don't recognize. 

To complicate things, this visitor is "invisible", i.e. he/she/it does not show up on the visitors' map below, and would spend like 5 or 6 hours each day on my blog, and look at like 600 pages at a time (do I even have 600 pages on my blog?!) 

Kinda creeped out, I decided I need to dig out this stalker...  I look up the various IP addresses used, and I figured out where Invisible Stalker is located: Russia. *da da darng*

This whole covert Russian cold-war thing brings to mind two possibilities... This stalker must be either:

1. The Spy Who Loved me. Oh wait, maybe it's the International Man of Mystery? Or...

        

2. A Cosmo-bot who resembles R2D2. Controlled by a Russian mafia, it peruses popular blogs all day (including mine, ha!), insert subliminal messages into them that'll hypnotize you to buy pirated music from their illegal websites.

Help me figure this out! Do you feel the presence of the ever-spying eye? Or do you feel the urge to buy illegal pirated music?