Changes.

I guess there's no concise way to sum up the past two years.

I'm working the same job that I was when I updated in 2015, although I am looking to change that at some point.  I love the work I do and I'm blessed to have the hours that I have, but next year, Kid 1 will start school of some sort.  If I maintain these hours, I won't really get to see him all that much.  Which I don't like.

I really want to teach.  Art.  I'd love to teach art.

One day, I want to have a huge influence over the schools of Arkansas, maybe even the U.S.

The thing about art and design is that they're everywhere.  Everywhere.

Every manmade thing that surrounds you right now - from the clothes you're wearing to the building you're in - has been designed.  Someone has been paid to create the things that we interact with on a daily basis.
How do we know what's inside a food package?  How do we usually navigate to where we're going? Why do we pick certain items over others that do the same thing?

Design.

From basic information relaying to functionality of a product, the design - the art behind the concepts - is soaked through it all.

And I want people to know that just because they can't draw a stick figure, or because they can't quite frame a shot right, that they can still find a place in this huge world of form and function.

I'm excited to do that.

Of course, I have to get through the testing stages and application stages.  As well as the training and interview stages, but hey - I don't plan on leaving that career anytime soon.

Kid 1 is talking a lot.  Which is amazing.  This time last year, he was a couple of months into speech therapy.  He couldn't even say "Mum" or "Dad".
Parents would reassure us that their kids weren't speaking much at that age, either, but would give us the few words that their kids were saying.  Any word at all was a bigger number than Kid 1's vocabulary.
We're at Achieve Therapy in town and it's amazing.  Kid 1's therapist has done an incredible job - and continues to do so.

Kid 2 is babbling and putting a couple of words together.  It's absolutely night and day between the two.  On one hand, I know that you shouldn't compare your kids, but on the other, you just naturally have those milestones set from the first one and see where the second one is up to in comparison.

It's not a bad thing, really.  It's encouraging.  Kid 2 is 18 months old, and is a few letters away from full ABC's.  Spoken.  And he can identify a handful of those by sight.
At the same age, Kid 1 wasn't talking, but he knew sign language and could effectively communicate with that.  Once he started talking, we found out that he could identify and say his alphabet at 2 years old.  We're proud parents, yeah, but with that comes the fact that you won't hear about any of our worries.

And we have plenty.  But that's not the stuff you need to focus on.  Nervous about something to do with behaviour?  Ok.  We can manage that and deal with things however we need to.  But that's not something we want to draw attention to - to ourselves or the child.  ABC's, though?  123's?  Of course you can have a marshmallow for that!  Told us you needed to use the toilet?  That's a new toy car right there!

And so I ramble.
The kids are doing great.
Wifey is doing great.
I'm doing great.

We're in a new house, starting a new chapter of our lives together.  As far as I am able to have access to this blog at the times that I do, I'll try and keep the updates somewhat frequent.

I've got some overhauling to do up in here; I've got some tags to add and move.

A lot of new things that I want to add; including, but not limited to:

Work on the house.
Where I'd like to document little handyman jobs and other DIY things I put my hand to.  And how they work out...

Work on the land.
Our house sits on the site of an old high school that this little town used to have.  Nearly all of it has completely fallen in, burnt down or otherwise been removed.  While unfortunate, the foundations of the main school still remain in what is now the back yard, which is pretty interesting.  Working the land will focus on what we're doing to clear out some brush, find the old building sites, and generally make this little slice of land our own, incorporating as much of what used to be here as possible.

Homesteading.
I've put this as a different category as "Work on the land", since that's much more aesthetic than anything.  This will be focusing on the efforts we're making to be a little more self-sufficient than we are right now.  We're* planning on chickens, goats and maybe a pig, as well as various fruits and vegetables as our time learning about all of this grows.

Hunting and fishing.
One of the aspects of life over here that really appealed to me when we were talking about where we were going to live (country-wise) was that idea of being able to support ourselves off what nature offers.  If we don't have much meat, we will have vegetable-heavy dishes.  But with a steady supply of deer, rabbit, squirrel, and various fish practically on our doorstep, we hope that organic, healthy, happy meat will be a large part of what we eat.
Most of the people we know here hunt.  I love that.  So many people appreciate getting dirty for their food and doing the work themselves.
The thing is; everyone our age has been doing this for pushing 20 years.  So they are well established in their routines and their hunting grounds.  They have friends that they hunt with, and have for years.
Me - at 27 when we moved over - had a keen eye and some relatively decent marksmanship skills, but no experience in the field.  A big problem with people who know exactly what they're doing.

So I 'm learning as I go and I'm going to share that experience here.  I have stated on my Instagram account that I do not intend to post pictures of my kill as it lies in the field, and that I'll only really show what's left at the end of the process, but I'll make no such statement here.  I want to be able to show the process from start to finish because I think that it's incredibly important to acknowledge where our food really comes from, and what goes into the preparation of that food.

So that's what this section will be about.

Career and related work.
Career meaning teaching, related work meaning doing art things and projects.
I've learnt to hide some cards.  As much as I can, I'll document some processes and artwork regarding projects that I'm working on, but it may be light.  I have a few things that I'm working on right now that I'd love to put up here, though.  So that's the focus of this section.  I may have a seperate section for my projects in the future, but I'm trying to be as small as possible with my topics right now.

Family.
Milestones and happy moments from the fam.  Phrases and quotes that my kids create; fresh bread and soup that Wifey makes.  The usual parent/spouse stuff that I'm excited to share.

Assorted interesting things.
I have a few collections that I am building, I have some hobbies that I can only really get into from time to time.  Things that interest me but don't necessarily require a huge section to themselves would be covered in this section.

As a baseline for these things, I will update later this week with where everything is up to at this time.
Photos and everything.

I'm excited to get back into this.  I put a lot of time and effort into it through uni and I really don't want it to just kind of fall apart...

More...

Peace!

*I say "we're"; I have to do some work to win Wifey around to the idea of chickens, since she doesn't see the need.
To be fair, Kid 1 is allergic to egg and I've been told that I have to watch my cholesterol, but I'll use those bad boys as meat chickens.  Maybe sell their eggs for a year or so at market.
Rhode Island Reds are good for meat and produce a fair amount of eggs.  Portsmouth Barred Rocks are fair for meat, but make a lot of eggs.  I'll probably aim for two of each to start with.

But that's for another post.

Two years.

That's a long, long time to go without posting to a Blog that I updated weekly.

We've had another kid since then!

Updates soon.

Peace.

All drive, no direction.

There are only so many times one can reinvent a project.  This week I've gone through the plethora of ideas that I've been working on - to some degree - over the past year and made a big list.

Board games, apps, video games, short graphic novels, books.  You name it.  If I've been giving it some love and attention over the past year - however little - I've listed it and I'm starting to work through that list and spend a little more time on the projects as I am able.

The plan that I tend to go to most frequently is the one that sees me work on any of the projects as I'm inspired.  This can be an effective way to work, since I won't get burned out on any one project.

As the summer is coming in hard and temperatures are not favourable to little ol' Brit me, I'm going to be spending a little more time inside and, therefore, closer to the projects that I have cooking.  It's a 6-burner stove with a few oven racks, a two-pot slow cooker and a microwave that I'm cooking with right now, with everything taking its own time to simmer, bake, broil, fry and boil.  It's a fun kitchen and everything is going to be presented once it's safe to serve.  For now, I'll keep you posted with the progress and some pictures; and I'll tell you about the projects in more detail when they're ready to be pitched and sent away to big, scary companies.  I'll post about some aspects of the ideas so that I can have a record here about what it is I have on the go.  I'm excited.

I'm really pushing to move on with some projects and although it's still a challenge to find that time to dedicate to working like this, my wifey is super supportive and I'm very much looking forward to the workload that I'm wanting to undertake.

So for today, here's a picture from the initial stages of an app. that I'm designing.  I'll be writing the mechanics and the background work, I'll be designing the characters, levels, game progression and all the add-ons/props.  Once it's in a state that I can present the idea to someone who can take it further, that's what the plan will be.

Cricket fighting is a big, old Chinese pastime - a lot of money is spent on it every year.  It's not a fight to the death, but rather a fight that is stopped once one of the crickets backs down; whether that's by stopping chirping, avoiding contact with the other cricket or getting throw out of the little pit by the other cricket.  It very rarely ends in the injury of any of the crickets.

They're fed special diets and kept alone in their own clay pots.  Pedigrees are bred by experienced breeders but a lot of common fighting crickets are sold in the marketplaces.

There are eight groups of crickets in the U.S that I'm focusing on; Field, Ground, Ant, Sword-Tailed, Tree, Bush, Scaly and Mole crickets.  Each of them will have their own strengths and each one will have their own specific special skill.

Additional characters will be added based on some other crickets and katydids, but the focus right now are the basic 8.

It's a bit of fun that I hope will go somewhere.  I'm drawing everything out and making a brief overview and pitch for the game.  It's going to be great!

I'll keep the updates here, as well as the updates for the other projects that I'm working through.

It feels good.

Oh - Happy July 4th!  We're not really doing anything, but I had a three-day weekend, which was nice.

Peace.

April.

April is a huge month. It's Little Man's birthday - he turns one - and it's my dear, lovely wifey's birthday - she's not going to be one.

As an update, my job is going well and I'm still drawing as much as I can.

I actually post quite a lot on Instagram - oddreference is my name there, if you're interested. Game design progress, nature bits and family things are all 'grammed (I think that's how those kids say it).

As for here, my dream is to get back on when we have a computer. It has slowly risen to the higher points of our priority list now, so it will happen as soon as we can make it happen. Until then, it's sporadic and brief, but I still love you and appreciate you taking the time to read and stop by here. 

To sign off, here's a fish I caught.

Huge.

Peace.

Maybe an excuse...

Hey.

So these are three pictures from December:

Empty lab tubes.  Not the first lot taken.  Definitely not the last.

More labs.  This was when I was in the hospital.  Still not the last taken.  At all.

My big fat arm from 6 days of IV.  It's gone down now, but my legs seem to have swollen instead.

Yea.  I've been pretty sick this month.  It's been a sucky Christmas, but presents - fortunately - have never been the meaning of Christmas to me or my family.  To celebrate what is such a completely new way of looking at and experiencing God - as a Man on Earth - is a joy to do. 
it's not confined to the one day a year, but it's something that my family and I get to celebrate in every day.  It's amazing.

Even though being in the hospital for a week was rubbish.

Still getting back on track; I'm not feeling great and I'm seeing the doctor again in a few days.  I can't wait to be better.

Bed time.

Peace.

Birthday present.

Last year, I was working on my Masters and had three jobs on the side.  We were expecting our little boy, too, so there wasn't a lot of disposable income.  So I've been waiting for this camera for two years.  I can't wait to get out and shoot some pictures!

The Canon 600D.  Or Rebel T3i, depending on which country you're in.
That's all for now.

Peace.

No excuses!

I've had the Blogger app. on my phone for longer than I can remember. But I don't like how the posts look on my page online. That's a pretty bad reason not to post.

So today is as good a day as any to start posting from my phone. At least I'll be getting something up here for you and I can always edit it when I do get online.

And it's my birthday! 28 years old today.

To start:

Baby Fairweather is this big, now! Another reason I've not posted that much as of late, which I don't mind.

A couple of 'mascot' designs for the high school. Nothing official and more of a character exercise than anything, but fun nonetheless.

Part of a game design that I'm trying in a different way. I really liked the designs for some of the sections of the race track in Wreckit Ralph - made with proper sweets! I figured I'd try something similar for a game I'm working on.

And then this one to finish. We get some awesome thunderstorms rolling through the town. And our house sits opposite a great space for us to watch the lightning when it hits the next town. It's truly awesome.

Well, the low battery beast strikes. I'll be back soon with some more created things!

Thanks for waiting for me.

Peace.