After delicious meals at Moxie’s, we all went back to my place for some drinks and conversation. We Skyped Luke pretty early on so he could be with us all in pixel form, and it was great! We laughed, talked about meat, and Darwin pulled himself up to a standing position for the very first time!

Later into the night, Tyler, Mike and Erin left and goodbye hugs were exchanged. Mike returned momentarily to retrieve the Moxie’s ribs he had left in my fridge (Good thing too, I probably would have eaten them. Forgotten meat is free game. Fact.) and then Luke and I continued to talk over Skype for another couple of hours. We had some refreshing, in-depth discussions about blogs, life decisions, Dave and creative projects. I enjoy talking with Luke because we share a lot of the same viewpoints on life while offering fresh perspectives and ideas.

During my epic talk with Luke, we got onto the subject of blogs and the different ways in which we manage them. I tend to be quite ‘in the moment’ with mine, and generally post every day. The down side to that is sometimes I don’t have a lot of time to dedicate to writing (yesterday’s post comes to mind) so I dash off something in 30 seconds that isn’t of much quality. Luke, on the other hand, keeps the quality of his posts consistent by having a number of posts on standby for days where he feels uninspired. If he doesn’t have time to write, or simply doesn’t feel like it, he can use one of his saved posts for that day.

I’m thinking I will adopt this idea for the blog. It will solve the problem I have of inconsistent posting. I post every day, but as I’m sure you noticed there are some days where it’s obvious that a post was rushed. I want to continue to provide thoughtful/interesting/funny content in a less ‘hit or miss’ fashion. I’m leaving for Kindersley in about 8 hours so I don’t have much time to set up extra posts right now, but hopefully I will some extra inspiration and have some extra time to invest in making a lot of great posts for you guys. I hate the idea of you, my dear readers, coming to my site for the most recent post and being disappointed by a really lame/rushed post. You guys take time out of your day to read what I write, and I want to ensure you are happy with what you read. I love you guys!

I hope you’re all having a great weekend so far!

In previous relationships, I would call out every single lie. I wouldn’t let much by. I was Wendy: Destroyer of Lies and I wore the title proudly. I craved honesty. Any time I was lied to it was World War 3. The one thing that attracted me to Dave in the first place was his unwavering honesty. It didn’t matter to him if it didn’t benefit him, he always told the truth. He was 100% himself with me, even when it came to the darker parts of his personality.

So, what’s different now? I think I have a better appreciation of just how rare honesty really is in life. I no longer call out every single lie that’s uttered to me. It might sound sad, but when I start sensing someone being dishonest with me, I start to rapidly lose interest in my relationship with that person and let it die off naturally. I’ve almost made it a game with myself. A social experiment of sorts. I can tell they’re lying, but instead of calling them out, I play along just to see what happens and where they take the lie, then I test them later to see if they remember.

The fakeness of some people is astounding, and I’m not talking about the “oh crap, am I acting like a normal person?” act put on in public. I’m talking about an entire personality that is faked over the course of months. You know the type: that one who is a completely different person depending on who they are around at the time. That one who changes personalities as often as socks. I’ve been thinking of this kind of person a lot lately, and I’ve got to say that I truly feel sorry for them. How difficult it must be to keep up an act with dozens of different people, trying to please everyone all the time. It’s incredibly frustrating to try to know someone like that, because you can’t really know someone who is constantly acting and telling you what they think you want to hear.

I’ve started paying attention to my thought process when I notice someone isn’t being honest, or hiding things from me. When I notice dishonesty, it gets me to questioning everything about that relationship and I start to devalue it in my mind. I find people get worse at lying as the game goes on so when I find out, I question my entire knowing of that person. What else have they lied about? Do they care about me at all? I quickly stop caring about that person. The friendship simply dies, because I’m not willing to keep something going that was built on a foundation of untruths.

Perhaps this is why my circle of friends has always been rather small. It has always consisted of one or two people who I trust, with a possible few scattered friends I might not see very often. I don’t like playing the stupid social games that people play. I don’t like to sit around and gossip or talk crap about people, and I don’t like when people talk crap about me. If someone doesn’t like me, that’s totally fine, I probably won’t care much, but be an adult about it. It’s weird how even at the age of 26, I feel like I’m in highschool half the time.

I just realized this entire post seems extremely cynical. It is, but I’m usually distrustful of people for a good reason. If you’re honest with me, if you’re genuinely a good person then I am pretty good at noticing. I appreciate the crap out of genuine people but they are increasingly hard to find. To the people in my life who are honest and real with me, thank you. I know I have high standards for people, but shouldn’t we all? Life is just too damn short to spend it on relationships that aren’t worth gold. I have lost friends for being too honest with them. Surprisingly few people appreciate honesty and most are content with those lies that make them feel more comfortable. I was thinking today and I came to the conclusion: Being honest won’t make you a lot of friends, but it will always get you the right ones.

So far, I don’t have anything awesome to show you yet, but I am pretty into this first character. When you guys see it, I think you’ll know why.

The comic, “The Squiggly Line” has been in the works for a really long time now… about a year, but recently it’s become more than just an idea and a dream that Dave an I had. Now that (at least on my end) it exists and is growing, I feel more into the idea than I ever did before. I’ve made a character ‘skeleton’, which will act as the base model for all my characters. Here’s what it looks like :

Things are beginning to flow nicely now. This first character is a lot of experimenting and trying to make things look like how I want them to look. It’s also acting as a way of getting familiar with Xara and learning how to use it to its full potential. I know all I have to show you right now is little more than a stick figure, but I promise awesome things are coming.

The day after my hangout with them (Sunday), I’m heading up to Saskatoon to spend a couple of days with my brother-in-law, Adam, and sister-in-law Natasha. Last time I saw them was in California (except for this one time we went to Red Lobster and it was AWESOME. How could I ever forget that?), and I absolutely love those guys, so it should be a great visit with plenty of laughs.

On Tuesday, my sister-in-law Briana is picking me up in Saskatoon and then I’ll be spending an unknown amount of time in Kindersley visiting with my family there. I don’t know if I’ve ever been up there during seeding, so I might learn something new about farming while I’m up there! In the meantime, Darwin is developing in leaps and bounds. He’s so close to pulling himself up to a standing position himself, is getting better balance by the day, and just today he started drinking out of his sippy cup all by himself! He never used to know he had to tilt it up to drink, but now he does!

Life is good, dear readers. Life is good.

For now, here’s today’s video!

I wish a very happy Mother’s Day to all of the other Mom’s out there and I hope you all had as wonderful a day as I did!

I have so much to look forward to with him. He’s becoming much more active now and really keeping me on my toes. He’s such an incredible little guy and I love him more than anything.

Last year at this time when I was pregnant and complaining about back pain and heartburn, I never thought in a million years that I would be a single parent, but here I am. Life has been anything but kind to me and my little man, but we make the best of every day because it is apparent now more than ever that life is freaking short. Losing Dave when he was just 27 years old really drills home that it is important to appreciate every single day we have in this life.

Being a mom is amazing. Seeing those two big eyes looking at me expectantly every morning is the best feeling to start the day with. He depends on me for all of his needs, and I happily provide. Our little family is beautiful and wonderful and filled right up with love. I cherish our daily walks around the neighbourhood and our night time cuddles watching television. I love his bath-time smile and the giggling sparkle in his eye when we play peek-a-boo.

There is nothing I love more than giving him a new toy and watching the sense of wonderment in his face while he absorbs and learns from his surroundings. Nothing in the world compares to the love you have for your child, and I’m happy beyond words to be the mother of this little man that Dave and I created together.

Part of the difficulty is with the number of options available in a program like Photoshop CS5. The variables in the brushes you can use is seemingly endless. The first time I tried to draw directly in Photoshop, it took me about 30 minutes just to figure out how to get a brush that would produce simple, pencil-like strokes. Altering your hand-eye coordination is another task that seems really impossible at first. Cause and effect is so different, it’s almost like learning to draw with brand new hands.

I think I’m going to ditch Photoshop for drawing, or at least try something different. Photoshop seems cumbersome and limited for drawing and I’m not getting the results I want. For one thing, Photoshop is a pixel-based editor and I think I’m going to aim for a vector based software like Xara, for the comics. I’ll stick with Photoshop for my photo edits and potentially for coloring and preparing things for print.

Xara is something I’ve been researching for a few days now and based on the examples I’ve seen, it’s more in line with what I want. It seems to be less bogged-down and quicker than Photoshop, and users of it claim it as being more user-friendly and easier to use than Photoshop or Illustrator. I’m going to try it out this weekend and hopefully it’s what I’m looking for. If it is, you guys should start seeing regular comics from me, around once a week.

Where I Want to Live:

3 Childhood Memories:

My Superpower:

The Future of Wendy:

5 Hobbies I Love:

Family Then vs. Now:

I’m not even going to bother getting into what this is going to end up being, but can you see how crappy is looks? You all know what I’m capable of drawing. Yes, I’m going for a more cartoonish look for the comic, but at least the lines could be smooth. I’m going to keep working on this, and eventually it will be something awesome. But for now, you can guess what’s meant to be going on in this picture.

Alright Wendy… the pressure is on.

It’s unhealthy to have just one friend that you depend on for socialization. It’s unhealthy, and it’s dangerous because if that one person disappears from your life for a month or two, you start to feel lost. Suddenly, you don’t have anyone there to talk to when you want to bounce ideas off of someone. The person you used to hang out with all the time no longer really has time for you, which is fine. You miss them but understand that life gets in the way and things change, but you still have to finish the first season of New Girl alone.

Sometimes something great will happen. Someone from your past will add you to Facebook out of nowhere. Someone you thought you’d never speak to again. Someone who used to be your best friend. It might even be a few people. When you get together with that person or those people for the first time, it feels awkward. You remember the way things were left before and you feel bad for cutting off contact with them. You step into things the way you test water with your foot before submerging yourself. You might discover that the water was warmer than you thought. Instead of things feeling awkward, it feels like no time had passed at all.

Reconnecting with old friends is a wonderful thing. Why run the risk of meeting new people to fill a void in your life when friends you already know and trust reenter your life? I’ve been surprised to find that aside from me having Darwin now, everything is the same as it was.

But actually, it wasn’t bad! Of course there was some nervousness but once I was there for half hour or so, I started to feel okay. Quite a few people showed up and I think everyone had a good time. I hope it is the start of at least a monthly get-together with the group.

I met lots of new people, saw people I hadn’t seen in years, and overall had some great conversation, good laughs, and the only down side was that I didn’t learn anything this time. Why? Because sadly the conversation, although good, was all over the place. Next time we’re hoping to have a central topic of the night, or something like that to focus the conversation.

Either way, I’d say that last night was a success and I can’t wait for the next one!

The last few months, I’ve been in a major slump. Between missing Dave and feeling like my personal life is a joke, I’ve been punishing myself. I’ve been doing that by eating just… crap, every single day. I’ve been lucky not to gain weight, and I thank breastfeeding for that, but it also means my weight loss came to a grinding halt. I have around 10 pounds to go until I’m back at my pre-pregnancy weight, and 20 pounds to go until I’m at my ideal weight. I feel exhausted and find that I’m unable to focus while eating this crap, but that ends now.

Today when I went grocery shopping, I bought all paleo-friendly foods so I can get back on the diet that made me feel so incredible for so long. I have gotten rid of all my ‘fat’ clothes because they were way too big, so I’ve been inspired to get in shape. Starting tomorrow I’m eating healthy, and working out every single day. I want to get back to how I felt a few months ago when I was on top of the world with a wonderful amount of energy and strength.

I’m excited for this new change in lifestyle and I’m optimistic that life is going to be awesome.

I’ve been thinking more about the weekly comic I’ve been planning for a while, too. I have a notebook half full of ideas I’ve been sketching when they come to me, and I think I have enough to make it work. I just need to develop my style. It has to be something I can do hopefully digitally using my graphics tablet. It also has to be something that looks good, but without taking a long time. Something I can do quickly.

Then there’s the vlog. Where should I go from here, once the 30 day challenge is up? Do I keep doing vlog-style videos every day, or do I shorten that to once a week? Do I make them about my daily life like the blog? I’m thinking no, because that’s what my blog is for. If I’m doing videos, shouldn’t I do something more independent of the blog? I was thinking maybe doing advice videos sort of like an ‘Ask Wendy’ once a week where I could share my opinions on different topics. I also thought it might be fun to do some art tutorials. Maybe try some comedy? I’m still not sure. What do you guys think?

I opened the first can of paint and got to work. As the paint went on, the room was slowly transforming. Each time the roller turned new paint onto the wall, my mood became a little happier. I started to actually get excited about how the room would look when it was done. Inch by inch, foot by foot, the beautiful blue and calming gray covered the stale beige from before.

The mood turned dark when I got to the point of the wall where the bed used to be. Tiny blood spatters that couldn’t be cleaned off. I remembered the night of that seizure. It was a particularly bad one, where Dave bit the side of his tongue and then proceeded to spit blood from his mouth onto the wall when he exhaled, unconscious. I painted all the way around that part before covering it up for good. I felt free. I feel free.

With a fresh coat of paint on the walls, it took a lot of effort to push the furniture in place. It’s solid wood, and I was tired. Exhausted, really. My back hurt, my feet hurt, my shoulders hurt. As much as I wanted to have a nap right there on the carpet, I pushed on. The bed was the most difficult. Inch by inch it found its final home in the corner where I no longer have to worry that Darwin will roll off the edge. Then came the dresser, the end table, and a final vaccuuming of the floor. The walls are bare, but shouldn’t be for long. I feel like I’ve taken a big step in the healing process, and the room looks great.

Don’t forget to watch Today’s vlog!

Perhaps it was because nobody sees the room that I felt comfortable leaving it that way for so long… my dirty little secret shut away from prying eyes. Surely, people would think I was sick if they knew I stared over the side of the bed each morning, looking at the items that mark a period of time when he was still with me. I wanted so badly to be able to do the healthy thing, but couldn’t. It was the last little area of the condo that was still… Dave, as he left it.

When you finally do build up the courage to change something that has been exactly the same for almost 8 months, it is overwhelming. I tried to move things as fast as possible, quickly putting them in the bedroom closet where the rest of Dave’s things are, but it proved impossible. Like an archeological dig, the more items I removed from his side of the bed, the more I uncovered. Under a shirt, I find a tiny blood stain on the carpet from the time he fell off the bed while seizing and bit his tongue. The memory plays in my head like a vivid movie. As I pick up a pair of pants, some change falls out of a pocket and I can’t help but think it was probably change from buying a diet Pepsi at work. On his bedside table I find a tiny white drip and I flash back to the morning he brought a bowl of cereal to bed and spilled it, followed by comedic swearing as he cleaned it up, apparently missing this one spot.

These memories rush over me like a tidal wave and I suddenly realize I’m smiling. Smiling at the many memories and happy times that we shared. There are tears in my eyes and a pain in my stomach as I close the closet, sealing away these items that I have emotionally held onto for so long. I miss him.

Now, I begin the process of painting the room, making it fresh and new again. It has been the hardest room to change but I’m glad I finally got up the courage. In a way I feel free. The burden of grief is a little lighter now and life will be a little easier. Although the room is changing, the memories remain, for it is not the physical objects that hold the memories. It is me.

So, what have I learned in my 2 weeks of being a vlogger?

1. It’s awkward at first. You feel like you’re talking to yourself and are worried people will think you’re crazy if they see you talking to your phone in such a fashion.
2. You notice annoying things in your own speech patterns that you didn’t notice before. Words you over-use become really evident.
3. Lighting is really important. If you wait until the sun goes down to do your vlog, you’re going to have a bad time.
4. Sometimes video can be annoying. I’ve noticed with my phone, it throws off the audio sometimes and it’s a pain to get it synced up again.
5. It’s a long process! When I update the blog I just type what I want to say and hit ‘Publish’. When I make a vlog I have to pre-plan what I’m going to say to some extent and it often takes more than once to get it right. Then I have to upload it onto my computer, put it together in Adobe Premiere, and then upload it to YouTube.
6. I’ve never been more annoyed at loud vehicles outside my window than when I’m trying to record a vlog.
7. In some ways, it’s easier than I thought. I’m already getting faster at it.
8. I feel a more personal connection with my readers/audience.
9. It’s raising my social confidence to some extent. For some reason being social on camera makes me feel better about being more social in life.
10. It inspires me to potentially take on bigger projects having to do with video in the future.

I’m sure I’ll learn a lot more as time goes on, but that’s what I have so far. Here’s my vlog for today, which is 5 of my strengths:

But, now I’m at a point where Darwin is starting to become more mobile and I’m afraid he’s going to throw himself off the other side of the bed in the night. So now I’m at a point where I need to move things around. I have to get that side of the bed up against a wall. As hard as it is to change the positioning of the furniture, I’m trying to look at the positive as much as I can. I will have more room and won’t have to turn sideways to get in between the dresser and the bed. Things will be better organized and safer, and when I paint that room in the next month or so it will be easier to get to all the wall space.

Of course, changing the room around will probably come with some closure as well, and closure is always a good thing.

My vlog topic for today was to describe 5 of my weaknesses. It was an interesting one to do!

Well, I guess people like that. I know there has been quite a few people who have messaged me or posted comments about my blog being inspiring, but I think this is the first time I have come across a status update that mentioned me.

A friend of mine from New Mexico and a fellow artist posted this on his wall today:
“This has been a difficult place for me to get to; going back to my blog and actually publishing what I write and letting the chips fall where they may. I’ve been such a loser when it comes to expressing myself lately and that is changing. But I have one particular person to thank for that; Wendy Ganiggle All I can say is thank you Wendy and God bless you and your family. Wendy started a blog not long ago and recently started Vblogging (video for those that don’t know) and this has inspired me to just go for it.

My goal is to publish primarily around my art and my art history studies. But for sanity sake and to help me grow some other experiences and thoughts will be included. I hope to have several pieces of artwork and my updated Artist Statement posted by end of weekend. I will also open the Gallery back up which will include both photography and artwork. I really hope people enjoy.

Peace & Love”

It’s things like this that really make me happy that I started this blog. Writing here helps me every single day and for a long time I thought that was all it did. I never dreamed that by writing my feelings here, other people would find something that inspired them.

As the one year anniversary of the blog approaches, it’s impossible not to appreciate and be completely in awe of everything that has happened in such a short period of time.

See Ahmad’s Blog here: Expressing Myself For Clarity