A breath of fresh air
I had an interesting experience last night shortly before I fell asleep, which lifted my spirits and renewed my faith in God. I know HE will provide for our needs. And that HE is in control.

When I woke this morning I determined to buckle down and draw another picture of the dog. I did not let myself look at any other blog pages, no web surfing, not even email to distract me. And I got the dog drawn! It is from the pose that the man liked the best, but it is just a face portrait - not a full body pose like he wanted. I think it looks good though. I will work on another pose this afternoon or tomorrow, so he has an option of the full body poses as well since the first one didn't look so good. The point being here that I don't want him to buy it simply because he said he would, but that I want him to like it. It's important to me that he likes my work. What's the point in drawing if no one likes it?

After I finished the drawing I did in fact allow myself to look at my email. And just as I suspected, there were distractions awaiting me!! I was approved for Google Adsense. So I attempted to add that button to this page. I have no idea if it will work right or not! It said something about there being a few days before it will start to show actual ads. I don't even know if I got the code pasted into the page right! I guess we will find out. Anyway, if you see a little ad box on the page here to the side, it's my attempt at trying to make a little extra money to pay bills... like our internet connection. Click on the button to see if it works! I have heard other people say it works. I'm skeptical, but willing to try it.

Blessings to you all!
-Sparkling

Addendum
Oh, I just remembered another dream I had last night. I think this may indeed explain why I'm so tired today!! I was building a HOUSE all night long! Well in my sleep anyway. My dream was some distorted represenation of our RL need for a bigger house (especially more bathrooms! and a couple more bedrooms!) converged into my dream-state weirdness.

I dreamt that the house we were in was too small (our house now is too small!) and it was situated behind another house (this is where it distorts from reality and I realise it isn't really the house we are in now, but yet another house of dreamland) and we had been looking to buy a bigger house but realised we could not afford anything in our price range that was big enough. So we started looking at smaller houses, for floor-plan ideas. And then what we intended to do was to build an entire second house attached to our first house, in a kind of L-shape. We settled for a 2-story cabin style house with big windows in the shape of a cross on the front. And then we got (borrowed?) a sample kit of some sort that would let us construct the frame and wood floor of the house just to see if it would actually fit in the property space and if we could make it work to match up the exterior doors. The biggest delimma for some reason was that we were trying to fit 2 washers, 2 dryers and 2 hot water heaters into the same utility room. (I have no idea why.) And we had to include the second kitchen also for some reason. So basically we would hend up with 2 houses on 1 property, but they would be attached and lived in as one house. The kitchen, bathroom and livingroom were downstairs of the second house and the bedrooms were upstairs. At the end, I remember saying "We shouldn't have nailed all those floorboards down, now we won't be able to return the kit!"

So, now you have a glimpse into my phsyche through a description of my dreams. You haven't heard the nightmares yet though... just wait!

-Sparkling

Blue Monday
Mood:  lazy
I still feel very tired. Wish I had a hammock on a beach like the one in the emoticon to sleep in. I could sleep some more, pretty sure of that. I don't think I've been sleeping very well when I m asleep because my brain has been working overtime on all these strange dreams. Most of them I can't remember when I wake up. But the one I do remember from last night (as an example) was fairly short (I think it was the end of a longer dream, I just can't remember the rest. I was doing a journalistic article on the big Asian grocery store near here. Uwajimaya I was talking to the lady at the fish counter, and she was telling me how they were catering a preschool/daycare luncheon (with fillet of sole, sushi and crab salad?) and she was showing me the uncooked fish in the clear plastic containers when I realised I had not brought my camera with me. I guess that's why I'm not a journalist in RL, because I can't even remember to bring my camera with me in dreamland! Does anyone else have dreams like this?

Anyway, I suppose I should make some kind of attempt at breaking out of this lethargy and sleep deprived, allergy induced exhaustion and try to actually accomplish something. I know I should be working on a new drawing but currently my motivation for drawing is not real high. Still frustrated at the series of events which served to crush my spirits this weekend. Oh, I don't think I mentioned the end of the story... See Saturday afternoon, I spent my last $6 on some used frames. Because I've been told I can't display my art unless it is framed. And I can't afford $75-125 per frame right now, and another artist I met suggested searching Thrift stored and yard sales for frames, so that is what I did. And I found several nice ones this time. There was one that fit my Grandma's picture perfectly, and looks really nice, so I put that one on her picture and will give it to her when we see her later this month. Then I put as many others as I could find into frames, and took the one of the Chimpanzee downtown to some a couple galleries, a frame shop, and coffee shops where it had been reccomended that I might find someone who would hang my art on consignment. I got 3 no's and 2 call back laters. One of the Art galleries I went to, I learned later, was run by a college art professior and he only displays his own art in the gallery. I guess that's what artist's have to do these days to get their work on display to the public for sale is to open a gallery exclusive to their own art. Anyway, it was horribly discouraging and after the emotions of the night before and the experience of that afternoon, I was left feeling like maybe I was wrong in following the lead of my heart to work on my drawing again. Maybe I was better off not drawing at all. No one is interested in pencil drawings. /sigh

But I do have this one commissioned work I have to try and get to look right, and hope to deliver this week. I may end up drawing 3 pictures - the one I finished already, a face portrait that I think will look really nice (but isn't actually what he wanted), and another full body pose if I can make it look good. I thought about trying to do one where he is holding her also, but both of them have their eyes closed in that photo, and I would have to sort of invent the expression in the eyes, and it might just turn out looking creepy, so I think I'll skip it for now.

Beyond that, I also need to do some more work on my game. I still haven't finished the work on that "special" 3D model I started a month ago. I've put some extra details into it, and it's taking longer than I thought to get it finished. I need to get back to working on some of the more mundane models. There are so many that need to be drawn! And I need to try and get hold of my friend also to see if she is still interested in helping, or if she has come up with any new inspiring ideas.

I can't believe it's the 6th already! Fathers day, my husband's birthday, my youngest son's birthday, my Father's birthday, a trip planned to Seattle, and I think a couple of kids' camps are all supposed to happen this month! Summer is way too busy! June especially, July isn't a whole lot better. And August is just plain too hot to be much fun. Ugh... Here we go again! Hopefully we'll be able to stop spinning long enough to be able to enjoy each activity as it happens.

Blessings to you all.
-Sparkling
http://www.tinyzoo.com

I hate summer
I know it isn't summer yet technically, but as far as the plants are concerned, it's summer. I've been up since 4:30 with an allergy attack. My eyes itching like crazy mostly. And stuffy nose. I got my order from Young Living yesterday so I have peppermint oil again, and it helps some. But not enough.

I didn't sleep very good anyway. I think because I was bummed when I went to bed. I spent the entire day working on that drawing, and when I was done, well, lets just say the Corgi looks like a dachsund or a chihuahua. My husband said to try a different picture, that I shouldn't take that one over to the man but I should start over. Then my friend told me to draw circles for several years like Michael Angelo had his students do, until I could draw a perfect circle. And suggested that I wasn't ready to do commission work yet, and it might take me several months of drawing constantly before I was good enough. So helpful. So encouraging. I felt like Chevy Chase in the movie "Animal House" when his wife told him to burn his book he had finally finished. The only difference is, we don't have a fireplace (or a beautiful large property like that either) so the picture just sits in my sketchbook instead.

This is the completed drawing...


The photo I drew it from is here: http://sheba.newbergmail.com/img11.jpg

So you can see that it does indeed look wrong. The head is too narrow (or else the body is too big?) and the ears are disproportionate (even though they DID look overly large in the photo also) to the rest of the face. So yeah, I gotta do it again. But the only kind words I got about my drawing were from my children who said it looked really nice, and they wished they could draw that well. My friend said "at least it looks like a dog". Sigh. If I had just slopped it together then I would think that the problem was not paying enough attention to detail. But I concentrated hard on it, I spent many hours on it, and I spent the most time on the face. Yet it's the face that looks bad. I should have just spent my day drawing the sketch for the animal pen I dreamed about instead. Would have been more satisfying anyway... And it would not have mattered if it weren't perfect, be cause no one but me would be interested in it anyway.

I don't know if I'm ready to work on a new drawing again today... I might wait until Monday. I feel very self conscious with my husband home criticizing me. Yes, I wanted his honest opinion, but it's rather discouraging when he can think of NOTHING nice to say. I guess I wasn't as prepared for his honest opinion as I thought I was. I wanted him to like it. Or at least say the eyes looked good, or SOMETHING. Yeah... Chevy Chase emotions here... definitely... ARGH!

Well, I don't seem to have anything positive or encouraging to say now either. All the joy is gone from me. Guess I should stop before the gloom spreads across the world over the electronic waves. It's not my intention to cause a world-wide depression over a bad drawing of a dog. Sorry... I will try to think of something more positive to say in my next post.

Blessings to you.
-Sparkling

Fair winds and following seas...
Okay, so I know nothing about the sea... however, today is another beautiful day of cool temperatures, fluffly clouds, and gentle breezes. The kids have been playing outside, enjoying the perfect weather, and I even stepped outside a few moments to take in the pleasure of such a nice day. I wish every day could be like this!

I have been working on a commissioned drawing today. Feels good to say that. HEHE No one has ever really "commisioned" me to do a drawing for them before. This is a very special work of art, as it is of a pet dog who recently died of cancer. The drawing is a memorial of the dog, for her owner who loved her and will likely always miss her until they meet at the rainbow bridge. Her name was Sheba, and this is her memorial website: Sheba Remembered

So far I have gotten the outline done and drawn the face and ears. Then I took a lunchbreak, during which time I got a bit distracted with looking at other people's blogs. I need to get back to work again.

Hug someone you love today!
-Sparkling

Beautiful clouds
Yes. I love our clouds here in the Northwest. Sunshine hurts the eyes, causes skin cancer, and creates a glare on my computer screen. I like clouds. Ever changing, providing much needed shade, and when the sunlight filters through them at just the right angle, the silver and golden lining is spectacular. So why do the radio announcers go ape with delight when the weather forecasters predict 90 degrees out? It's because they're sitting in an air-conditioned studio, and not actually out IN the sweltering weather, that's why. It's cloudy and cool and wonderful today, and I like it! I hope it stays like this all month! Being that it's June though, I doubt it, so I'll just enjoy what we have today.

Yesterday I created a webpage to share the Calendar Wheel that I made for my son. I had a lot of compliments for it in the past, so I decided to just make it available to the public. You can see it here: Calendar Wheel Or as with all my personal pages, you can follow the link in the left hand menu to the Heaven's Blessings Tiny Zoo webpage and find it there.

Today I've been trying to figure out this BlogExplosion.com stuff. Well I spent a small part of the day trying to figure it out. Some of it is sort of confusing, ALL of it is time consuming, but I did view a few interesting blog sites in my journey. I still haven't figured out how to earn points though, I think I have like 0.25 of a point... I don't think I have enough time in my day to make it work like they have intended. I created a banner according to their specifications, and uploaded that. But I don't know how that's supposed to help me either, I saw something like 1 point = 25 impressions, which I gather means that I don't get to display my banner unless I earn points, and earning points requires (apparently) many hours of "blog surfing" which I don't really have time for. And I read a post on one person's site that the people mainly just vote for their friends, and don't actually look at any other sites. So that seems a bit unbalanced also.

Anyway, I took the kids to the gym for exercise day again today. I think I re-injured my shoulder throwing a football to my son. He has a better arm than I do, that's for sure! But we had fun.

And now I'm trying to be patient and let my chicken pieces marinate in salt water, so I can make Jewish chicken for dinner. Or my variation of a Jewih Chicken recipe I found anyway. A kosher Jew might turn their nose up at it, I don't know. And my husband just got home from work so I guess it's time for me to get back to my work and get supper finished.

Blessings to you all!
-Sparkling

Allergy Season
I've seen the way they talk about allergy season. The pharmaceutical commercials make it sound like this is comparable to hunting season. You go out, pay your license fees, spend a few sleepy hours in the dark dampness of early morning and with any luck tag your deer and go home.

If only it were that easy! (And that much fun!) No... not hardly. For many of us have severe allergies for 5 or more months out of the year. Many of us do not respond to the anti-allergy drugs as miraculously as the commercials would leave you to believe. Many of us feel just as sick with allergies as we do when we have a bad cold or the flu. Many of us prefer a cold to allergies. The major difference is that there is no hope of the allergies going away in a week... they linger on sapping the life out of you for months on end.

And if that wasn't bad enough, then you have the middle-of-the-night allergy attacks. Where you wake up at 2:00 am with a scratchy sandy feeling in the back of your throat, your eyes itching like someone has sprinkled crumbled thistles in your face, nose tickling and sneezing, your face feels puffy and swollen, your ears itch and maybe even ache deep down in the canal so much wonder if there might be something crawling around in there (but you know there isn't), and you are coughing from the raspy feeling in the top of your lungs. No matter how exhausted you were feeling when you went to bed, at this moment there is no possible hope of sleeping through the attack, so you drag out of bed and seek relief from cold water and peppermint tea. You avoid the Mountain Dew at this hour, though you do contemplate it's helpful properties for a few moments before closing the fridge door, with futile hopes that the attack will subside enough to be able to return to sleep. After using 5 or 6 tissues in the course of 2 minutes, you once again wonder what might be involved in investing stock into the company that makes Puffs Plus. You try the homeopathic spray, the essential oil of peppermint and whatever other remedies have helped in the past in hopes they will work faster this time. And then when all avenues of treatment have been exhausted you resort to distraction, and try to find soemthing to do that will get your mind off how miserable you feel, and hope that if you ignore it long enough the allergy attack will go away. Ah yes... the joys of allergy season. If only a little drop of liquid in the eyes, or a little tablet with a glass of water would cure it all away as quickly and completely as the commercials make it sound! I wish!!!

A month early
Just like Spring arrived a full month early this year (the Plum trees were in full bloom mid-february, instead of mid-march like they usually are) I believe Summer has arrived a month early also. I don't suppose it's too much to hope that it will leave a month early as well?? My eyes are itching and my nose is stuffy, and I have the sneezes... the allergies are attacking full force first thing this morning. Looks like it's going to be a hot day today. Again. I'm really wondering about Alaska... is it any cooler there?

The long 3 day weekend was refreshing. I'm ready to get back to work again today. I need to either continue working on my website or on some 3D models. I think I'll start with the models and when my eyes start to boggle from looking at all the little dots & triangles, I'll switch to web designing instead. I know I have about 1000 models to make for this game and even if I could make 1 model a day (which I can't) it would take me 2 years to finish. So at this rate we're looking at about 10 years just for the creation of the models if I have to do all of them by myself. Really wish I was better at recruiting help. People seem to think I'm completely insane for trying to create a MMO with no funding and no budget. Yet every time I'm about to give up, someone says something (in the context of something else, or often just in general sweeping statements) like "God wants you to finish what you've started". So I get the idea that I'm supposed to keep on working on this game, even if the game fails as a business, I'm supposed to make it anyway. Just as I homeschool our children with the conviction that it is what I am SUPPOSED to be doing, if I go against God's will and quit (either the game or the homeschooling) it will be far worse for everyone involved. So I will keep on keepig on, until there is absolutely nothing else I'm able to do on my own, or some project-stopping obstacle drops in my path to prevent further progress.

Several days ago I wrote to the ambitous woman, Andrea Webster, who is attempting to build the Christian theme park in Brittain solely on donations, at the email address she lists on her website Ark Alive but I have not heard back from her yet. There is no indication on her website that she has received any donations for the project whatsoever. Meanwhile there is a great deal of indication from other people's blogs and websites that she is under a tremendous burden of scrutiny and ridicule. Some of the comentaries are naieve to the fact that there ARE already Christian theme parks in other places around the world (not just in the cartoon world of the Simpsons) including one in Florida Holy Land Experience. So I realise that much of what people post on the internet are just people who like to criticise and ridicule other people because they have nothing better to do with their own time. But that would be a terribly hard burden to live under, and I realise I am facing the same judgemental critics in my own project. I hope that she has, and that when the time comes I also will have, a strong support group to help keep focused on the end goal that got the project started, and not to be crushed by the voices of doubt and criticism that would wish to end the project before it is finished. She needs a total of $144 million Brittish pounds to complete her project. I need about $6+ million American dollars to complete mine. She is currently asking for an immediate donation of $2.6(?) million to purchase the land where she wants to build her park. I need about $2 million also just to be able to hire a small team for 1 year. Something that struck me as shockingly ironic in both of our requests for donations is that we both were asking for donations in increments of 12. She is asking for 1 million people to send a faith-promise of $12 a month for one year. I am asking half a million people to give a one time donation of $12. I did not realise she was asking for the $12 a month (all I had heard was $144 per person) until long after I had come up with the $12 figure for my own project. Is there some significance to this similarity? I don't know. But it is interesting, at any rate. =) Of course the major differences between her project and mine is that she is building a physical amusement park that people enter through a front gate and can see and touch and experience; while I am building the intellectual property of a software program where people enter the experience through the virtual world of the computer screen. She has to buy a property, materials, hire contractors, park attendants, and other personnell. I just need to buy a property and hire programmers and a game developer team. But I'm fairly certain that in both situations it is the salaries for the hired help that incur the greatest cost in the equasion. And it is the help of other people that both of us need so desparately to be able to accomplish our goals. We're willing to pay for the help, but we need help on the funding to be able to do that. Or at least that is how it is for me, as I said I have not heard back from Andrea Webster yet so I can not speak on her behalf. I am speaking only from observation and process of elimination based on the research I've done reading her and other websites, in comparison with the market research and other information I have gathered in the process of working on my own project.

So what have I actually accomplished in the creation of VISIONS to date? Well, I've registered my company name, I've researched the potential market for a Christian computer game (which sounds promising to me!), I've drawn several 3D models, I've decided on the game engine that we will build the game on, I've located a source for DEM's of the Holy Land (although I don't have the funding to purchase them) which we will modify for use in the game, I've begun work on the website for the game (which currently is a component of my personal website, but when we reach a point of sufficient funding will be moved to it's own web domain), I've begun researching potential marketing and distribution options though I don't anticipate making any final decisions on that matter until we have an actual Demo of the game ready for the public, I've written the first quest (or one of them) that players will experience when they enter the game world, and I have been seeking people to help me write more quests and to work on the game programming itself. My oldest son wants to help with the programming, so he is currently teaching himself Visual C++ in addition to his regular school lessons. And my middle son said he wants to help with the research, so he has begun learning more about operating the search engines of the web browser. He said he also wants to learn how to draw the models, so I may be giving lessons in how to use MilkShape soon. All in due time.

And now, back to your originally scneduled program. My daughter wants her breakfast so it's time for me to sign out now.

God bless you and may HE grant you peace.
-Sparkling

China Wish List
I found a recently posted wishlist of things my friend & her family in China would like to have. As she says on the page, this is a WANT list, not a need list. But as I know so well, sometimes going without the things we want can really effect how we view life in general. If you feel compelled to send a care package to China, here is their list of suggestions. Their children are 7 and 9, but advanced readers, so age-appropriate novel length stories are welcome also.

Anna and Niels

Toys: Legos (esp. Knights Kingdom )

Candy: Jelly Belly gourmet jelly beans in a variety of flavors, Nerds, Red licorice, Fun dip, Tootsie rolls (any flavor), Laffy Taffy

Book: Red Wall (#4 or later), Hank the Cowdog (#5 or later), Jim Kjelgaard books

Kim

Spices: Fajitas and chile, Cinammon, Oregano or spaghetti seasoning,

Treats: Cocoa powder, Concentrated maple flavoring, Cake mixes w/frosting, Pudding mix

Music CD's (big band, 50's, bluegrass)

Software: "Learn to type", Numbermaze Challenge

Used stamps (crafting stamps, not postage stamps)

Joe

Comfort stuff: Coffee filters, earplugs

Books: A Field Guide to the Birds of China (pub 2004)

Geek stuff: A good digital voice recorder (eg Olympus DM-10) with PC interface, a USB memory stick, a USB to serial converter (for my GPS), Adobe CS for XP (thats probably pushing it, better stop here)


Send it to this address:

God bless you all!
-Sparkling

Cooling off again, YAY!
The clouds have graced us with their shade and promise of rain once again. The temperature is cooler, much more comfortable, and the allergy attacks have lessened. Not gone, but more bearable. I hope we don't end up having a really hot summer like the last few days have been, but I'm afraid it was just a harbinger of things to come. So I'm going to try and enjoy these cool weather days while I can.

I've been meaning to post here about the work my friend Kim and her husband Joe are doing in China. I added a link to their web page under the "Places to go" section of my links here. http://www.labtoes.com/ They have moved from their family home in Idaho to work as English teachers in China. They are working with a team through a program with Food for the Hungry. And if you read through their newsletters, you will see that there are many opportunities for people who may wish to join them in China in nearby villages to teach English to the people there. You do not need to know how to speak Chinese to be able to help teach English, because most of the students have some experience with English from their classes in school. The Chinese people are very interested in learning to improve their accent and word useage from native speakers of English. It looks like a very exciting cultural experience, and possibly a life-changing mission opportunity. I encourage all of you to read through their letters, and look at the amazing landscapes of the rural part of China where my old high school friend friend lives now.

And the most recent news, just discovered this very afternoon, is that we have a Raccoon mommy living under our porch with her 1 little baby. Ron heard scratching noises under the porch, so he pulled up one of the boards and I brought the camera out, and he got video of the Momma and her baby. Momma was growling at the camera, and baby (eyes not even open yet) was chattering. Very cute! We can't move to the forest, so God brought part of the forest to us! I think it's very cool.

And hopefully before the end of the day we will have news of my brothers newest edition to his family. My Sister-in-law went into labor this morning, so there should be a new baby soon! This seems like an exciting day today! Started with a hot air balloon flying over our back yard, my friends sitting next to me in church, plenty of food on the table, in cupbords and in the freezer, a raccoon family under our porch, and soon I will have a new baby nephew! :)

Peace and blessings to you all. May the Light shine upon you.
-Sparkling