I want to live here, with the garden on top of the house.
Or maybe on the right there, with a garden and a little fence and maybe a goat.
Apr8
Happy little houses
Apr1
Still drawing…
I haven’t done much drawing but I did do a happy one recently that I haven’t posted yet.
I drew this one on a rainy day right after a really sunny day. Aaah, sunshine! Swings!
Happiness.
Mar2
Step 1: refuse
I got into a bit of a drawing-funk and as soon as I mentioned it, it got better. Funny how that works.
Recently, I've re-injected some of my focus and energy into creating less waste. I (briefly) participated in [Rodale's Plastic Free Challenge][1] (in February) and researched the Dutch recycling system. I found out that (according to the official numbers) we recycle 90% of our paper / cardboard. Not bad!
With plastic we do less well. Until recently we had no real plastic recycling facilities. Some cities do post-collection separation (like Amsterdam, where I live) and some do consumer separation, where people separate their plastic trash. Not much of this really gets recycled and they ship it to Germany to begin with (from what I understand) and incinerate the non-recyclables. Not ideal, but you have to start somewhere I guess.
I've looked into ways to make less waste (of any type, mostly plastic because that never ever goes away and burning it doesn't really do any good either) and this morning I decided to start drawing the four steps with which I believe I can make a difference:
- Refuse
- Reduce
- Reuse
- Recycle
Refuse
Feb4
Sketchbookproject
This gallery contains 16 photos.
I took part in the [Sketchbook Project 2011 Tour][1] recently, and after some delay in receiving the book (the first one got lost in the mail, and the nice people of the Art House co-op…
Jan9
Review: Little Brother
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
As '1984' did, this book left me feeling slightly paranoid, and I mean that in a good way. I found this an easy read, it pulled me in and I really wanted to read the ending (a happier one than 1984 had). The last few pages of the book contain the URLs for websites which have more info about the hacks done in the book itself, I appreciated that thoroughness.
A few times I seemed to have missed things that I probably should have read between the lines (which I suck at) which made the story a bit jumpy for me, but overall I enjoyed the 'voice' of the book. I thought I wouldn't get into a story about a bunch of 17-year olds and liked that I did.
Now excuse me while I go faraday my backpack...
View all my reviews
Jan5
Review: 1984
1984 by George Orwell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book left me feeling slightly haunted and paranoid, which I believe the writer intended. Although I don't think we find ourselves in the same society today as the one portrayed in the book, I definitely see similarities. At the first mention of the 'victory cigarettes' (or coffee) I thought of 'victory fries', or 'freedom fries;' I forget which one really happened ;)
Ironically, while finishing the book I read about the rewrite of Mark Twain's 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' and 'Tom Sawyer' to exclude a certain word and replace it by another (not quite the same). Hello, Newspeak!
At times I thought the book went on a bit (specifically the parts where they read from The Book) and I had to struggle to get through it; nothing I hold against the book though, it seemed to fit the story.
The rebellions of Winston and Julia seemed small when held against today's society, however, they already lived in theirs for a long time and didn't know any better. Although I hoped for another ending, the way the book ended added to the haunting feeling I had.
It all does not seem very unlikely to happen.
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Dec24
Books to read
I recently ordered an e-reader and because it did cost quite a bit more than a book I decided to challenge myself by first reading enough free books to compensate for its price. By free I really mean free, either public domain books or free as decided by the author. This means I've decided on reading a lot of classics I've either read as a kid (in Dutch) or 'always wanted to read'.
I discovered GoodReads and created a list of books to read. I planned on having 42 books on there -- we all know 42 is the only correct number -- and ended up with 44. I'll leave the extra two on, so I can skip a book or two because they suck.
Check out my readinglist:
my before-buying-ebooks shelf:
Also, I created a reading list page with links to books I've read and books I want to read. I spent the day geeking out and tweaking Goodreads-wordpress-plugins so I can have my shelves show up nicely.
Very excited, it got shipped today and should arrive tomorrow. Snow might interfere so keeping my fingers crossed!
Dec7
Meet Semli
She lives in the forest in a house between the roots of a big old tree. She likes feathers and playing.
Her father likes fishing and cooking, her mother builds things. Mostly furniture.
Nov20
Dragon
I can’t get the claws the way I want to. Guess this means I have to draw a lot of dragons…
Nov17
Creating subtasks in OmniFocus on iPhone
This gallery contains 10 photos.
And now, for some total geekery!
I don’t know if this always existed or if this feature appeared during some update. However, you can create subtask in OmniFocus on your iPhone. I didn’t know…
Nov16
Nothing done yet, but got the t-shirt
Today I received my Sketchbook Project t-shirt. The book hasn’t arrived yet, and with the postal strike it might take a bit longer. However, I’ve started to get really exited about this project, even if it violates my no-experiment rule a little.
Can’t wait to get started!
note to self: check the right category
Nov15
Butterfly
Late night doodling.
Nov9
Sketchbook project
Guess what I signed up for…
Nov8
I did a guest-drawing!
Nov1
The no-experiment
I've not felt well lately, very tired and stressed. Part of this comes from having a lot of appointments scheduled. A big part of it however comes from wanting to do to much. I don't want to do extraordinary stuff -- although for my condition it would qualify as such. I want to do stuff other people consider normal.
- Walk the dog for an extra long time.
- Buying groceries.
- Hanging out with friends.
- Visit family.
- Go to the movies.
- Randomly hop into the car with TG and go for a nice beach-walk.
All of these things require planning on my side, which also sucks up precious energy.
A couple of days ago I read Michael Nobbs' new book Sustainable Creativity in which he discusses the importance of learning how to say 'no'. For some areas I know when to say 'no': I can easily say it when I don't want to do something, or I don't have the time, or I have other plans. But at those times when I don't have plans yet, I really want to do it and think I have the energy, I won't say no. And this backfires. I rarely do have that much energy, and end up canceling many things. This does not make me happy.
Tonight I watched the movie 'Yes-man' and it gave me an idea. What if I say 'no' instead? I have things planned (and one not-yet-planned-but-sorta) and won't precancel them. I will not make new plans however, excluding the ones where I go to the hospital (or other medical stuff) or where people come to my house (less tiring).
This may sound a little drastic, but I gave it some thought and it seems like a cool experiment. Worst case, I'll feel bad the day after for saying 'no' and then I'll have learned I said 'no' to something that matters to me. In a way, this will force me to re-evaluate things that matter to me most, and these may or may not include the things I think matter the most.
It will also, hopefully, give me some practice in saying 'no' when I do think I have lots of energy (but actually don't and I end up wasting all of my reserves).
I have no idea about how long I want to do this, considering a month or perhaps until New Year
