better living through chemistry...

in which our plucky heroine has lost the better part of a week...

The combination of prescribed muscle relaxant and TENS unit and acupuncture is having an effect, as there is somewhat less back pain. I have slept so very much, due to the medication, that I may actually be well rested for a change, with a concomitant result that not a lot else happened around the homeplace, since for an entire week I have basically slept when I was not going to medical appointments.

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My chickens are gone - I sent them away, as caring for them was almost beyond my strength. They have gone back to the place that raised them, and if/when I recover from this, I can get them returned to me. Without them the daily routine feels very weird, like after a housemate has left, the circular round of the day is slightly disrupted. Still, it is a relief not to have to drag myself out to the henyard several times a day, or figure out how I am going to manage to extricate their food from the safe-from-rodents bin it is usually kept in. (I sent the new bag of hen chow off with them, since sans hens I have no need of letting their food go stale when it could feed them and hopefully be of use to Tonya the henkeeper)

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Just before everything went south, I volunteered to be part of a group doing a scribal project... The assignment was to paint "{fieldless} a seraph proper", no other information given. The project is intended to show "that different artists are going to render a piece of art differently, and that the [heraldic] blazon remains the same."

Well, first off, I had to go look up what a seraph looks like! Okay, it is basically a child's head surrounded by six wings... I did a few quick sketches, and then drew out the design on a small piece of bristol board

Once the design has been inked in as an outline, I began to paint, starting with the face. Somewhere in my internet searches, I read that the child's head often had red hair... not sure how accurate it was, but the idea of a little ginger seraph amused me...

gradually filling in the wings as well, with a gradation of color. Hmmm... something about the wing edges looks more like a cephalopod... still need to put in the details on the upper edge of the wings, which will transform them from tentacles to peacock feathers... I'm using this medieval mosaic as an inspiration for the wings

...and the final effect with the mica Finetec paint used for the feather vanes. I am right pleased with how detailed* I was able to make the
metallic linework, by carefully holding the brush so that just the very brush tip was touching the surface.

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Had two acupuncture treatment last week, and while I am nowhere near recovered, there was some noticeable improvement between Monday and Thursday. Tullia was able to actually get some gentle movement in my back without me crying in pain... I didn't know we had a Ranch Market 99 here in the metro area; Poni and I went there after acupuncture on Thursday, and had lunch from the "dim sum cafeteria line", which was both inexpensive and delicious. It is now on my roster of "local large asian supermarkets" along with Uwajimaya, Fubonn, and Hong Fat. Each one has a slightly different mixture of which foodstuff products they carry, so is good to know about all of them.

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September SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	charter # 10	bathrobe hang-loop	-
2	fig sauce	x	-
3	seraph	x	-
4	x	x	-
5	x	x	-
6	x	x	-
7	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

* this small image can be clicked to enlarge, to show a closer view of the detailed wing feather vanes... actual size of the painting is only 3 3/4" tall -