merriblu

[merriblu]

May you all sleep as well as my cat on lazy Sundays

[merriblu]

My other boy, slowly turning into a puddle

[merriblu]

My boy isn’t handling the heat well…

[merriblu]

It is done!!

Next renovation will be tearing out the carpet on the stairs (honestly, the cats are already doing pretty well on their way of making this happen). We are going to use the same for tread to stay cohesive with the layout but have white wood on the risers to break up the monotony.

Eventually we’ll upgrade the wallpaper and move onto replacing the living room floor… eventually

Here is a picture of the original tiles. Sadly this goofy picture is all I have for reference haha

[merriblu]

Progress!

Also, my dog is sooooo over this renovation bullshit:

[merriblu]

Well, going 2-3 months without a hospital visit means we are back to doing renovations *cries*

So, when we renovated the kitchen, we stripped these awful terracotta colored tiles out and tiled more modern ones in. The same same terracotta tiles are/were in our entry-way and we are finally getting around to exchanging them.

It had been… an experience.

We found some cracks in the foundation and needed to patch those before laying the tiles. Not a big deal really. We expected those because the kitchen had the same issue.

What I didn’t expect was my genius dog to sneak downstairs and lay on the epoxy covering the patchwork… gluing her damn face to the floor.

EVERYTHING IS FINE! We are extremely lucky that none got into her eye. Merri was even able to free herself, but glued her fur in a way that it pulled her skin in a way that worried me. Like… her ear was literally folded in half, glued together. She has long fur so it was minimal shaving but..

Well… maybe she’ll shed the rest out soon…

It’s ok my puppy. We’ve all had bad hair cuts at least once in our lives.

Bonus pick of me and my noodle arms:

[merriblu]

Love that when my wife and I are negotiating, the trade off is always promising to watch some god awful sharknado-esc movie…

Whyyyy are there so many shark movies??

[merriblu]

So, I planned on doing this May writing thing yeah? And I’ve been doing it but I‘m very shy about what I have been writing. I suppose I’ll write what it is about and trust my folks on hear to tell me if I’m pretentious or not.

I’ve had this idea in my head for years now.

A single guy. He‘s a coder or and editor… something that allows him to be antisocial and work from home. He doesn’t need anyone and one day goes out for a smoke and a bird is talking to him. A bird who just built a nest with his lady and had eggs… buns in the oven?

Anyways, guy treats the bird as his confidante. Guy himself who had a kid with a gal when they were teenagers. Gal offs herself (single mom too much pressure mental illness… all that stuff we don’t talk about out loud). Guy is privileged and his parents „foster“ the kid. Kid is like 8 now and parents are going on an extended vacation and he must actually… be involved with his son.

I don’t want to „spoil it“ (not that it‘ll be good enough for people to care about it being spoiled). But anyways, I’m hoping for the ending to illustrate that my guy realizes he needs actual human connections and to be involved with his kid but sometimes… it’s just too late.

So uh… yeah?

[merriblu]

The love is so pure. My boy defending his princes from what I think was a falling leaf?

[merriblu]

Maybe a silly idea but I‘ll share it anyways.

I have A LOT of „how to draw“ and „how to write“ books. Most of those… I haven’t touched in years and I certainly haven‘t read them cover to cover. These books were required for an art class but the lecture always took precedence and then I rushed through the assignment because the task was boring.

I actually remember doing this exercise (the 8 headed figure) for class. It’s the first step every aspiring figure artist learns and once this assignment is finished, it’s never really expanded on. Most classes start moving on to 3d body parts. College classes are on a strict time-line and not every page in those expensive art text books are covered. As a 30+ adult having to buy these books… I felt incredibly scammed.

So today I created a journal dedicated to revisit old textbooks. This page is a study of „the flat diagram“ from an old Loomis book I bought 15 years ago when I couldn’t afford college (Back then, I had researched which books art universities required).

I want to approach creative learning like that teen buying books again and not as the adult wanting to get her money‘s worth. I want to draw slowly, and messy — not for a passing grade just to keep from paying the (literal) price of having to retake a failed.

This journal is going to hopefully be inspiring, embracing mistakes, scribbles, jotted notes. Maybe it‘ll inspire y‘all to go through some books or blogs that really excited you to follow a passion.

[merriblu]

Oooh! I'm excited to see you doing the May writing challenge! What do you think you might write about?? How much of it are you likely to share???

I honestly want to share every single day. Most of the people I communicate with on here are mutuals and also creative minds — I think community is the strongest tool one can have in their toolbox. If I get feedback or comments, that’s awesome because I love dialogue! More important is if I’m also showing people it’s ok to not make masterpieces every time pen touches paper.

I have no idea what to write about. I think it’ll be a mashup of random ideas like little cool scenes that live rent free in my head. Maybe some original work with fanfic. If I’m feeling a huge creative block, it’ll be a damn diary entry with my edge-lord feelings.

Ideally, I’ll make a doodle with every blurb but I’m not going to make this a rule because I don’t want this to spiral out of control with too many goals.

[merriblu]

Girl someday we should get our respective shit together and make a little book!

I would love to do this soooo much. It’s why I’m forcing myself to do things I love and do them badly 😂. I’ve pushed off illustrating and creative writing for oh… 6-7 years now? Because I guess just THINKING about it seemed easier than DOING it?

And for what?

The worst thing that can happen is that I STILL accomplished something I put my mind to. Maybe even improve my skill and renew my passions along the way?

So, I’m gonna scoop up all my respective scheiß and mold SOMETHING out of it.

[merriblu]

Dammit, I’m going to do this! I haven’t written in YEARS. My dream is to still create a little illustrated story. The illustrated part…. Will come much later lmao. 200 words a day! About…. Something…

May Writing Challenge

This May I want to get back into writing. I’m not at all consistent. I’m at a point where I don’t feel like I can work on bigger things, because I can’t guarantee myself to keep working on it in a week from now. So I will take this month as a training month to get back into the habit of writing. I will do this by writing (or trying to write) 200 words every day. Topic is irrelevant. How great my writing is that day is irrelevant. Just 200 words written down. A habit taking 21 days to form was debunked, it does take a lot longer, but 31 days are a start I would say. These are already 140 words, so 200 words every day are hopefully manageable. You're more than welcome to join me if you like 😊

[merriblu]

First time I could sit an hour at the piano with no pain and y’all… the level of serotonin released into my little golden retriever brain was such a delight.

I’ve only been playing for a year. I play BADLY. And it brings me so much joy and stability.

Do the thing you’re scared of doing, do it badly, and shit up and be happy about it. It does you more good than you will ever fully realize!

[merriblu]

A little unsure if she just really missed me while I was at the hospital last week or if she really likes my silk pajama 😅

[merriblu]

[merriblu]

Back from… a second emergency surgery and the level of exhaustion I am feelings is just unreal.

So, the surgery on Friday was planned on short notice because it was important to get it done as soon as possible. I got to spend exactly 1 day home when I noticed… let’s just say questionable symptoms and went to the emergency room around 10pm per recommendation from the emergency hotline. After SEVERAL VERY INTRUSIVE TESTS, Frau Doctor said I needed emergency surgery — simple procedure but critically needed. The bonus is that she was super nice about everything, one of the head surgeons, and the one who would be handling my surgery.

The hilarious part was that the anesthesia team was the EXACT same team from my surgery on Friday. It was like saying hello to old friends 🤣. My god, these people are now on a first name basis with me and my wife.

Also hilarious, my wife has visited me so much in the intensive care wing, she knows exactly where they keep all the good juices and puddings.

Me: „mmm… they only have plain Jogurt here and I just hate it…“

Elke: „Oh! Check the bottom drawer! They have much better flavors there and more juice choices! Do you need a spoon?“ (instantly knows where the cutlery is located)

Me: „Have you been… snooping again?“

Elke: „ *silence*…. I needed a vase for your flowers and had a look around“