Drawing on my new-to-me tablet pc is amazing!
The Intuos4 is great, but I could never get over the disconnect caused by looking at the screen rather than at my own hand when I draw.
I picked up a used Fujitsu Lifebook T4215 on Ebay for less than three hundred dollars. Yeah, that hurt. I had to do some extra side work to pay for it. I will have to unload my old laptop when I transfer my files to the new pc.
As great as the Intuos4 is, the less sensitive tablet has been so much more productive for me. I’ve been painting in photoshop and it has been a blast. I even got to doing some sketch studies – something I never did with the Intuos because drawing just wasn’t fun with it.
I can’t imagine how awesome the new Cintiq must be! It uses the same tech as the I4 tablet but has a giant 21 inch screen you can draw on directly.
Coffeecake
Now that the weather is trying to cool off I am starting to bake more.
One of my favorite recipes is this coffeecake (I don’t remember where I got this recipe but I know that my copy is falling apart and I better post this while I still have it written down somewhere):
Ingredients: •Topping:•1/2 cup brown sugar•1/4 cup sifted all-purpose flour•1/4 cup butter•1 teaspoon cinnamon
- these are just estimates, I usually just throw these together by feel.
•Cake:•1 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour (sift before measuring)•2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder•1/2 teaspoon salt•1 egg, beaten•3/4 cup sugar•1/3 cup melted butter•1/2 cup milk•1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preparation:Topping. In small mixing bowl, combine topping ingredients. Blend with fork until crumbly. Set aside.Sift 1 1/2 cups sifted flour with baking powder and salt into a bowl. In a medium bowl, beat together beaten egg and 3/4 cup sugar and 1/3 cup melted butter. Add milk and vanilla. Stir in flour mixture and mix well.
Pour batter into a greased and floured 8-inch square or 9-inch layer-cake pan. Sprinkle topping crumb mixture evenly over batter. Bake at 375° for 25 to 30 minutes, or until cake tests done. Partially cool in pan on wire rack. Cut coffee cake into squares while still warm.
Peanut Butter Cupcakes
As you all know, I love peanut butter. And I love baking. I am always on the lookout for a good peanut butter cake recipe. One that is not too dry, or too dense. Very often peanut butter cake recipes come out like breads. Which is fine and tasty, but not really what I want in a cake recipe.
And, as you may or may not know, Sarah just loves Sprinkles cupcakes. So, last week she and Betty were down in Santa Monica and they ended up at Sprinkles Cupcakes. Betty gifted us with half a dozen of their delicious little sugar bombs, two of which were peanut butter chip.
Magical!
They were so good I just had to see if I could find a recipe for them!
So I Googled up the the Sprinkles peanut butter chip cupcake recipe that owner Candace Nelson gave away on a morning talk show some year (or two) ago.
It was equally magical!
I don’t know if it was due to the big globs of chocolate chunks I used, or all that creamy, natural peanut butter, but those were the moistest (yeah, I wrote moist-est!) peanut butter cupcakes I ever baked!
I urge you, to give this recipe a try if you love peanut butter half as much as I do! You can even watch the video on YouTube – just search for Lisa Quinn and Candace Nelson Peanut Butter Chip Cupcakes Recipe and enjoy!
The Shifflet Brothers, John Brown, and Mark Alfrey
I blame all of them for my current sculpting addiction. If you saw any of their videos then you know what I mean!
Comic Con 2010
I have found my paradise!
Oh! And Scott Thompson was there!
Oh! And Scott Thompson was there!Less than thrilled
Overall been less than thrilled with the community aspects of this site. I now remember why I didn’t sign up right away. I like the food log and burn meter, but I can safely say that if a couple of the other sites had these tools and if they were as easy to use then I would certainly head over to the daily plate or that other calorie king. The forums are populated by the usual “regulars” you get on any website. That would be fine, but on this kind of site you have a core audience of hurt, timid, shy, and/or quiet people. I have started blocking regular posters. Many moderators seem less than expert in their subject forums. You get what you pay for holding true here. The groups tend to suffer from too small an audience. A lack of participation or low turnout decimates the smaller ones. Personally, I feel alienated from my 300+ group now that my struggles are that of someone trying to drop below 200 pounds and training to run a half marathon next month. I neglect to post when I am successful because I feel that it may come across to some members as bragging (I can remember feeling that way myself), or when I am having difficulty losing because I am so far below the focus area of the group. I feel caught between the fit and the fat: too fat to fit in with the fit people, and too fit to fit in with the fat people.
June 1 and the plateau goes on
Weigh in today at 229, up three pounds from last month but still within the 224-234 ten pound fluctuation that began around the holidays. The holidays of 2009! Six months!!!
Really, I’m not stressed. It was maddening at first, then it became funny, then morphed into something prison-like. You know, like accepting your fate. Now it is just the way things are. And being stuck here is better than being stuck there. Where is there? Back in the four hundreds, that’s where there is. And it sure is good to not be there anymore.
Trouble is, in this case, you can go home again. If you aren’t careful. But why would you want to? Missing the diabetes? The high blood pressure? The constant sweating and fatigue? No, I don’t miss it and I don’t want to go home again. Sure, Hostess cream-filled-anythings are heavenly and peanut butter on a spoon may be about as good as life gets, but those taste sensations come with a price tag that is just too rich for my blood. So I will keep on keeping on. Hope you have half the heart to do the same.
Terrible cramping after longer runs
My long runs have been put on hold because I have suffered terrible cramping after each one. I mean, doubled over like something inside of me is trying to tear its way out painful. It doesn’t start until I am about four miles into my run, sometimes after three and a half.
I read that some runners get painful gas due to a mild lactose intolerance that doesn’t present itself until they run for longer periods. I do have a mild lactose intolerance, but it was very severe when I was a child.
I was just three miles into my run yesterday when I had a painful cramp that slowed me down. I worked through it, but at the end of the fourth mile it was getting pretty rough so I called it a day.
I didn’t have any dairy Saturday, just in case, but I may need to cut that stuff out way earlier than that before my long runs. I hope that’s the problem, anyway.
The eighth mile is the slowest!
The eighth mile is the slowest. Not really. But my pace was way off today as I went out for my long run with the idea of conserving energy since I was adding another mile to my run. So what happens? I run my slowest time ever!
Well, that’s not true. I couldn’t run eight miles last year, and if I did I am sure I would have been slower. But somehow I managed a time 19 minutes longer than last week’s seven miles. (1:48, fyi) Okay, I did run out of steam between 6.5 and 7, and most of seven could hardly be called a run. At one point I couldn’t get my feet to look anything like a run. So I walked about a quarter mile, fired up the engines, and took off! (For about 2 blocks).
My toe pads are on fire, the balls of my feet feel as if they were raked across hot coals, and I got post runner’s gas cramps that are doubling me over. I visited Mr Potty three times since I’ve been home. TMI?
You know what? I’m digging this entry. Really. Here I am, previously 401 pounds, and I am complaining about my 8 mile run. These are the things we should enjoy in our new lifestyle. That, and the fact that I burned a bunch of calories today. Mmm, hamburger for dinner? Nah, I’m just kidding!
7.1 – half way there
I ran 7.1 miles this morning, farther than I have ever run before and halfway to my goal of running a half marathon on Memorial Day. I started experiencing gas cramps after the fourth mile, and they kept getting worse as I continued. And my stomach/back started aching from the bouncing motion – I think the excess skin of my panniculus is pulling on me and I am just not used to running for that long all at once. I wear compression pants, but I think a compression shirt is in order for these longer runs. Hopefully I will get better/tougher (and faster!). On the plus side, I burned over 1200 calories. Woohoo!
