[Project:ThreeSixFive] Day [XXX].

Interstate 30 goes between Texas and Arkansas. Route 30 goes between Oregon and New Jersey. That's the best I can do for today.

Talking about today:

I'm in a sewing funk. This is my effort to get out of it. It's for a good friend back home and I'm excited to send it out.

I like the fact that these images take a very short amount of time to load. The photos take a while. This is a Big Sword. Looking back at the other weapons I've drawn, I can see that the Longsword is bigger, so I'm just going to have to draw a Bigger Sword tomorrow.

So the flat rate boxes here have upped in price... In one sense, it's not really flat rate, but then again it's still going to be the same price for wherever we send it. Sort of. And obvious triple-the-price rule applies to overseas, so that's nice.

Also, I got a letter from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service telling me that I have given my biometrics in and that they are now going to resume processing my application. Although it is very good news, it shouldn't have been news at all and I have found this aspect of the government(!) to be disgustingly slow and frustratingly inept. Thanks, USCIS. I've only been waiting for permission to work for FOUR MONTHS. I'm required to stay in the country for six months while my Green Card application goes through, yet the government, in their wisdom, see it fit to have me wait four months before letting me work to support my wifey and I.

I just don't have the time to tell you how frustrated I am and how inadequate I've found these guys to be.

But saying, that. My God provides. He provides big time. We're still more than comfortable, despite having no income whatsoever and having spent all we had on my Green Card. We have an amazing family round us; both Melissa's folks and the guys at church. They're supporting us hugely and it is so, so appreciated. We're going to be fine. 'tis but a season.

I'm off to make more dolls :D

Peace.

[Project:ThreeSixFive] Day [XXIX].

29 is the atomic number of copper. I have been looking for a 1943 steel penny for a while, now. I found out yesterday that there were 40 pennies in 1943 were struck in copper. In 1943, copper was put towards the war effort, so pennies were struck in steel with a zinc coating. I think - as opposed to the copper/nickel alloy that the normal penny is made from.

It's been a great day. Church this morning was fantastic - Rob Ketterling was a guest speaker and talked about money. I like it when churches talk about money; especially when they're doing it right. We learnt some good, practical tips, too.

After that, we took my wifey's bestie to the airport. We decided we wanted to cut it fine, so we took a 20 minute detour to Oklahoma. :s

Then we made it back in time to be at the first College and Career Remix Group. We grabbed some of the food there and chatted with new people. The talk was interactive, which was a really good idea to take it. Lots of people got involved and made it a great night.

For today:

On the way back from the airport, I was peeling a little orange for my wifey while she was driving. I went to take the horrible stringy bit out - you know the bit down the centre? And as I pulled it away, it popped off pretty easily. Little biddy orange, innit? That there dime is the same size as a five pence piece, for my English homies.

Buh. A better cowboy yesterday. All pencil, this one. Pretty happy with it. I'll throw it into photoshop and put some darker lines on it; maybe some colour. Could look good.

I grabbed the laptop from my wifey so I could upload these on time. I'm off again for now.

Peace.

[Project:ThreeSixFive] Day [XXVIII].

I takes Saturn approximately 28 years to circle the Sun.

Getting up a bit later than we expected, we headed into town and had lunch at Calico County. An amazing little place that serves incredible food. We ate until we were only able to walk slowly to the car. After that, we went to Van

Buren and had frozen yoghurt.

After that, we went to downtown Van Buren and found a lovely little shop that sells soaps and other natural, homemade lotions and skincare things.

For today:

A quick shot of the room we were in at the restaurant. I love places with stuff all over the walls. This in one such place.

My wifey's bestie ordered the most Southern thing I've ever seen. Deep Fried Corn. I didn't even know it was on the menu!

The girlies getting their hand treatment. The lady on the right was the owner of the store and maker of everything in it! It was a great smelling store. I can't remember the name of it at the moment, but I know we have a receipt somewhere with the name on it. I'll post the tomorrow.

Hats are a problem for me. They shouldn't be, but they are. Drawing every day has put me in a welcome position. Normally I wouldn't have drawn anything for a few days. I go through cycles - as every artist does - where it seems that none of my lines are doing anything I want them to do. Today is such a day and so were the last two days. But I think that forcing myself to draw is pushing me through it. For my drawings, I've got a few ideas for the weeks and months to come:

A different media each day for a week.

A different surface each day for a week.

A themed week.

Animal week.

A fanart week.

Once I get out of this drawing funk and start making things look something like I'm wanting, I'll decide which one to do first.

For now - it's time to relax with a bowl of Capt'n Crunch. Because I'm in America and that's all we eat here.

Peace.

[Project:ThreeSixFive] Day [XXVII].

There are 27 book in the New Testament.

Today has been great. We went to downtown Fort Smith and learnt a lot about the history of the city. Pretty great stuff. After watching True Grit the other day, it was nice to learn more about that film and also about the city that's really just down the road.

For today:

In the can. The Can? You'll see.

Yea - the biggest beer can in the world. It's huge and it's amazing.

We went to Miss Laura's - the last remaining House of Ill Repute in the area. Non-functioning. Prostitution was outlawed in 1924, I think. In the 80s, this place was a restaurant. Now it's open to the public as a tour place thing. The other 6 houses in the area have since upped and left.

The Gallows. This bad boy can hang 12 people at once. Pretty gnarly. That's right. Gnarly. Although only 6 were hanged at once at most, it's still got the ability to hold twice that. Had to use the Wide-angle lens, too.

The Disputed Line. In 1825, the Indian Territory (Oklahoma from 1909) was ruled as starting from the point 100 paces East of the Fort (Smith) and continuing due South. In 1857, a survey found that the Native Americans had originally miscalculated and that their line favoured South-west. Instead of increasing the Indian Territory by a small strip on Arkansas' side of the Arkansas River, the Native Americans were given just over $68,000 for the correctly-calculated land. I think.

A solitary heron. I got a few photos of it, but this one is my favourite.

"Oh, swans," I thought. I focused the camera. "Ah, there's one more to the lefWHAT? PELICANS?! SWEET!" I wasn't expecting that.

A mother sparrow pretends not to notice me as I snap a picture of her and her nest. I was chasing a cardinal round for a while, but didn't get a good shot. I'm happy with this, though :)

Drawing, you say? Here's one.

Oh, you want another one? Well I guess there's this one.

Not much drawing got done today on account of us being outside all day and learning a lot of new things. It's a fair trade. I really want to just sit down and draw western things, though. I got a photo of a section of the list of the names of people hanged in Fort Smith, so I'm wanting to think of a story behind either their reason for being there or their capture. Whichever is more exciting.

I'm updating my Facebook profile. Need to stay hip.

Word.

[Project:ThreeSixFive] Day [XXVI].

Apparently, a Rubik's Cube can always be solved in 26 moves or less. 26 is also the only number that sits between a square number and a cube number.

It's been a really nice, chilled out day. My wifey's not working today - myself and her best friend set up a huge surprise in which her best friend flew down from Ohio last night. At 22:15, we set off to Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport to pick her friend up.

My wifey asked pretty early on if I wanted her blindfolded - thinking we weren't going to be driving for too long... She was blindfolded for about an hour and a half.

We got there on time, so all was good. I guided my wifey out of the car and stood her in front of her friend. After taking the blindfold off and waiting for that split second, my wifey jumped on her best friend, screaming and giggling. It was great!

We've spent the day chilling out and showing my wifey's friend around the town. A tour that lasted a long time because we walked.

For today:

My wifey and her bestie. Doing their nails and watching a movie. We watched True Grit. A much better film than I was expecting. And I was expecting it to be great!

A bloodied longsword. Yea, I'd already drawn it, but today I drew some blood on it.

If that's not good enough, here's a halberd. My wifey helped me with this one.

And if that's not good enough, here's a quarterstaff that I did myself.

I'm off to bed.

Peace.

[Project:ThreeSixFive] Day [XXV].

25 days is the approximate rotation time of the sun.

Also, I'm 25. It's a good number at the moment.

I'm posting early today - earlier than ever (so far on this project). My wifey and I are going to be out tonight and as she's working tomorrow, we're needing to get to bed as soon as we get in, so I'm being all responsible like.

For today:

It's been raining all night. Before we went to bed we knew that we were in a flood warning zone (or something) for the next 36 hours. Our house is actually raised a bit, compared to the other plots on the street.

It doesn't mean the garden is completely dry, but we're only half covered.

As for the neighbours, yea. They're completely covered. Apparently, it's been bad enough before for them to be able to row a little inflatable boat around. Pretty sweet. Almost.

I'm working on drawing things that aren't violent or weapony. Here's a thing.

Here's my inspirational picture. In two days - the 27th of January - it will be the first anniversary of the death of this artist. His gallery is incredible - his artwork is phenomenal. He is missed loads and will continue to be missed. As uplifting and happy as discovering his work was, it was pretty devastating to find out he passed away after being ill for a while. There are a hundred pages of comments since his death, a testament to how loved he was and still is.

Stop on by and check his gallery out - http://clementsauve.deviantart.com/gallery/

I'm going to sit on the rainy porch with my wifey and read the Bible for a bit. The two loves of my life right there.

Peace.

To add a bit today:

I did origami! I made an elephant the other day and it took me a long, long time. And I got in a funk because it was really tricky and I wasn't expecting it to be. I had a look for another design before and found this one for a butterfly. Now I know it! My tips will be the best tips.

Peace.

[Project:ThreeSixFive] Day [XXIV].

24 is the atomic number of Chromium.

My wifey and I babysat today. It was pretty cool. I also went out to the church and sat in on the main media man to see what he does there and how he works, etc. It was a great afternoon!

For today:

I'd like to say that this was an exercise in using something other than my camera and that it is thoroughly inspired, but it's not. It is an exercise in using a different camera, yes, but that's just because I didn't want to use the camera I normally use, blah, bleh.

I'm messing round with cut-out-looking characters. It'll be nice once I get a better grasp, but after an hour or so, I'm fairly happy with this chap. Even though he has no arms.

Just watched The Science of Babies. It was great! We're now watching Stephen Fry in America. Which is also great! Even though I know - deep down - that a lot of the things that are on this show are nonsense. "I'm in America. Look - a McDonalds." Or something.

Tomorrow, I'll have a picture by - or link to - another inspirational person. I've got a whole load of images I could pick from now, but I'll look for an exceptionally good one.

Peace.

[Project:ThreeSixFive] Day [XXIII].

23 is the only prime number that is made up of two consecutive prime numbers.

I figured since I'm going to be posting a lot of numbers, I'd try and find something interesting about them.

For today:

The dog rolled over in his sleep. It was pretty cute.

There was some heavy wind last night. Some of the trees in the back garden are dead, so they were losing their limbs pretty happily last night. One of the limbs hit the house. It didn't do any damage, but the sound of it hitting the house sounded like one of the main trees snapping and cracking, so we legged it to the fireplace and huddled there for a bit.

We gave the puppy a trim. We opted for the 'looks like he's wearing pants now and has a huge head' look. Pulled it off pretty well, I'd say. You can't tell here, but he looks hilarious now. Pom pom head.

I also took a load of photos for my wifey - she's wanting to set up an Etsy shop for me :D She's amazing.

And small but orderly. This is my latest weapon lineup for the Dungeons and Dragons pixel tiny small weapons. From left to right: Bow and arrow, nunchucks, small hammer, big huge hammer, small axe, bug huge axe, spear, short sword, long sword. I don't know what's to come, but I know I'm about half way through.

That's all for now. My wifey's going to have a go on the laptop. She's great.

Peace.

[Project:ThreeSixFive] Day [XXII].

Great morning at church followed by a wonderful afternoon in - and my first visit to - Chuck E. Cheese! For a friend's 25th birthday*!

For today:

Deep in thought and concentration at Chuck E. Cheese. At this moment, I was the pilot of a helicopter that was inexplicably hovering in space, making sure aliens and asteroids didn't hurt the earth.

My wifey at Mr Cheese's. We had a blast! I love her so much. We just ran round like kids and played on all the games and got loads of tickets and bought sweets and pepsi.

Drove past a few deer on the way home. Not as many as usual, but my wifey turned the car round so I could get a few photos. Shame about the barbed wire fence, but the nicest shot I've had yet!

More done to the axe I started to do yesterday. I'm thinking of making the weapon set from Dungeons and Dragons in tiny pixel form.

*It was her 25th birthday, but she has a 6-year-old son.

The puppy's getting shots tomorrow - early night to prepare for that.

Peace.

[Project:ThreeSixFive] Day [XXI].

My wifey and I went to a leadership meeting today that lasted all day. It was pretty amazing.

We stopped on by and saw Melissa's friend's baby on the way home which was nice.

Now we're chillin' on the couch. My wifey made some amazing honey chicken for dinner. I love her.

For today:

On the way to Melissa's friend's mum's house, we drove past this huge building frame. Pretty big.

And then my drawing for this very busy day is this - a silhouette of a Battleaxe. Still working through the list of weapons to draw... Maybe I'll post it here sometime.

Peace.

[Project:ThreeSixFive] Day [XX].

A drawing at 11:40 is still a drawing...

For today:

It was one of those days where the fact that it's overcast means you can look at the sun without burning your retinas. I know the sun is a sphere and that there's no change in the shape of a sphere when you look at it from a different angle (like a cube or pyramid), but it's so far away that we can't perceive it as a sphere - only as a circle. I think that's really cool. It's just a 2D shape chillin' in our 3D world.

This is a fantastic example of keeping spiritually healthy. This was a huge oak tree that grew on the side of the road here between us and our grandparents. It was really big and looked really strong. Then, one stormy day, it was struck by lightning and fell down. Once it had fallen, something pretty huge came to light. Although it looked strong and although it looked like it would be able to take anything that was thrown at it, the inside had rotted out and the only strength to the whole tree was what could be seen on the outside. Nothing more.

Every time I pass it, it's a reminder that staying strong in our walk with God, keeping accountable to close friends and not trying to hide anything that will cause us to stumble are some of the best things we can do to stay honouring to God and bring glory to His Name. It's a reminder that everyone has things within that they don't want anyone else to see and sometimes keeping a brave face and seeming strong can get us through some things in the short term, but eventually the things we hide are brought to the light.

Don't hide things away. Find a good, trustworthy friend or two and hold yourselves accountable to what you struggle with and what you're dealing with. Don't keep a brave face and hope that it gets you through. Don't pretend like you have everything under control. No-one does.

Great Axe. Another weapon to the inventory...

Bed time. We've got a leadership meeting tomorrow and it's going on all day, so my wifey and I want to be up and ready for that!

Peace.

[Project:ThreeSixFive] Day [XIX].

I think I'm kidding myself with how fast this is going. XIX looks like a higher number than 19.

Well, I've maxed out my 4GB SD card. To be fair, it was half full when I got it, so it's not that impressive. It'll be a nice feeling to format it once I've put the images that aren't mine onto the home computer here.

For today:

Had to break out the Wide-Angle lens for this one. There was a huge fire that we saw on our way into town. The smoke looked like an angry cloud at first, but as we got closer and the trees got out of the way of the skyline, we could see it billowing up. Pretty scary.

I thought I'd start drawing my own renditions of the weapons that are in the Dungeons and Dragons book. They're generic swords and spears and things, but I figure it'd be fun. I'm working on the brother I posted yesterday, so I'll hopefully have something to do with that posted tomorrow.

I'm off to bed.

Peace.

[Project:ThreeSixFive] Day [XVIII].

Well. I learnt a shortcut for posting my blog. Unfortunately I found it before I had put in anything more than my title.

It's been a great day. We were going to go and see one of my wifey's best friends in Oklahoma, but as it transpired, we weren't able to. So we went on a big walk and got a cookie.

After that, we readied ourselves and went to church. It was an amazing night. This morning, we were listening to a podcast by Jimmy Evans (I think) about prophecy and ways to go about it. One of the things he talked about was prophetic prayer - praying about a person and asking God to reveal things about them and them praying about those things. It was pretty interesting. Long story short, I was honoured enough to be able to put that into practice tonight and it was amazing!

I've not drawn a whole lot but I've drawn something, at least.

For today:

I like this sign. I haven't been in this one yet, but it's a landmark I look out for when we're in this part of town.

We're looking into our family histories. I believe my surname comes from three brothers that were cast out of the Clan of Morres in Scotland. I figured I'd draw me and two of my brothers all Bravehearted up. This is the start of it because I didn't have much time.

Ha. Posted in time.

Peace.