Back in GA

After an aggravating day of state hoppin', Lucy and I are back in GA. I spent yesterday visiting Macon, the place I lived for a year before moving to KC. Macon gives me mixed emotions: I love to see my old friends, go to my favorite coffee shop (they gave me my latte free yesterday!) and run on one of my favorite trails. Along with the good comes the bad though. Macon isn't a great city. A lot of areas aren't 'safe'. It has gotten better over the last few years - the downtown where I lived has been restored but it seems more and more people are leaving Macon for other areas (Warner Robins, Perry, etc.). Also, I really grew sick of my job in Macon. Driving down some of the streets brought back the same 'sick' feeling I had when I worked - a dread of having to do the same boring jobs with no hope of creativity involved. I had to remind myself that I wasn't working there....just visiting!
I'm sure I'll go trailrunning again soon and will bring my camera. I'd like to show my Kansas friends my Macon trails. Maybe I'll get to Athens over the holidays and take some trail photos there too!

The all-nighter

Well..here I am sitting behind the computer late night again. Although I don't do all-nighters nearly as often as I used to (college days and during my jail sentence working in Macon), they still happen. It's usually because of deadlines and/or procrastination. I don't 'put off' work and just sit around doing nothing.......I usually just end up working on something I 'want' to instead of the work I 'need' to. Tonight happens to fit that instance. Got a deadline for sketches tomorrow, but instead of doing it today, I work on my weekly 'Illustration Friday' entry. Then I napped....and after that, I did my weekly Tuesday night trail run. So after settling down to work, it's midnight.
But you know what? I don't mind all-nighters...and I even like them sometimes. I like the quiet. I like when I'm listening to music and I like the darkness out the window. I'm a nerd and like 'coast-to-coast-AM'. I like to drink coffee...all day and night! Anyway...guess this blog entry was just another way to put off work. Gotta go...'coast-to-coast AM' is coming on and I'm sure it's something about ghosts!

Music I'm into lately:
The Meters
My morning jacket
Andrew Bird
Chesterfield Kings

Christmas surprise

If you'll be reading this blog, you'll soon see that future posts will jump from present time to this past summer when I moved here. I've been taking pics all along but just now started posting them. Here is a more recent one.
Lucy and I put up our 'Charlie Brown' tree on the last day of November. She was leaving for a week-long pharacy trip the next day so we wanted to finish it before she would be gone. When nearing the end of decorating, she was admirering our handywork and looked pleased, but then I said, "there's one ornament missing though!" Lucy looked confused then I pulled out her surprise and asked, "Lucy, will you marry me?" Since I had been decorating our little tree, I was already in the 'asking position'. Totally caught off guard, she had the 'deer in headlights' look for most of the night and into the next day. Let me put it like his, Lucy rarely has a shortage of comments and isn't afraid to state her opinion on ANYTHING. This is what caught me off guard!

Oh...she said yes!

Snow running!

Had my first 'snow run' this past Saturday morning. The group has been telling me, "wait 'til we're running when it's cold and snowy..." all along so I was prepared for the worst. Actually the weather was nice and I overdressed. After the last few days, the cold weather is moving north and leaving us w/ pleasant temperatures in the high 30s/low 40s. When we started Saturday morning at 8:30am, it chilly but bearable. The run was 10 miles and would normally take us 1hr, 30min. during the summer, but on this snowdy day, we were gone for 2+ hours....and it was tough going. I only slipped a few times, but you had to watch every step because you never knew what the snow covered - sticks, rocks, or deep horse hoof prints (we run on horse trails).
After we finished, the park was having a 'chili run'. It's an annual event where people run a 10k then donate some money or clothing to charity. There's homemade chili and goodies available to everyone....so I donated my cash and had lunch!

Halloween '05

As most friends know, Halloween is a huge event for the Crosby clan. It was the best holiday of the year - friends, food, drinks, and plenty of laughing. I guess having the creative gene didn't hurt either. We would (still do) spend wwaaay too much time making our costumes or even a haunted trail when we were younger.
Over the past several months, Lucy and I have been watching wrestling on and off. She actually didn't know Ric Flair until we started and now, everytime he walks into the ring, she laughs. I thought, "why not make her a Flair costume for Halloween? She's already loud enough to pull his act off!!" (heheheh). Anyway, I probably put 15 hours into sewing her robe and making her old school WWF belt. I spent so much time making hers that I had to do the worst thing possible (not quite as not having any costume), but I had to 'buy' one. BOO! I was a voodoo doll....who actually looked like a person in a giant potatoe sack. BOO! Luckily, no one took any photos of me before my camera batteries died. I do wish I could've snapped a pic of Lucy wearing her full 'Flair' garb (including colorful boas not pictured) and doing the 'Flair strut'.
My sis, Melanie, and her fiance, Brad, drove to KC from Fort Worth to spend Halloween with us. Mel pulled off the 'bad ass fairy' costume pretty well! Enjoy the pics!

Finally...a post!

I made two different blog when I started - one for illustration and one for pics. I've been great about updating my picture blog, but haven't done ONE entry for the 'Midwest Ramblings' blog. Until now...We just had a big snow storm (5-8 inches) yesterday and today. Here are a few shots. Hopefully I can dig up more photos from the past several months!