The Everything Project

And I'm still at work. Guess what? No pictures today! Sigh.

So sorry - no pictures today! I've been swamped at work. Check tomorrow!

...and drained and contained. A roasting pan I never use (my, that's becoming a theme, isn't it?) , a colander I do use, and a plastic bowl I use a lot.

Now that I've started to draw bigger things, I need a bigger shadow box to put them in. That's a project for when the upfronts are finished. Until then, it's going to be all I can do to post regularly.

Apparently it's been a week since I last posted anything. Time flies when you're caught up in a promo emergency. Yes, I know that's ridiculous. As J. says "It's only television. Nobody dies." But we do get very, very busy.

It will be quite hectic until June 1, but I'm hoping I can post more than once more before then!

Sooo... onward. It's not in the junk drawer, but it probably should be - it's a salad spinner with some essential problems.

1. the bottom has holes, so when you spin it, water flies everywhere. I guess you're supposed to spin it in the sink, but when I'm making supper, the sink gets full.

2. I usually buy pre-washed lettuce - quite frankly, I don't like to spend time washing my food before eating it. I'm not a racoon.

3. I don't actually like lettuce, anyway. I only eat it because it's "healthy", but lately I've just been using cucumbers as my salad base.

I should get a new one. Maybe I'll eat more lettuce that way.

And maybe I'll start sharpening my knives, too.

...climbing out of the junk drawer and moving onto more useful stuff (I hope).

A lovely mixer by Kitchen Aid - not as sturdy as the big counter top model, but I don't have much in the way of counter space, so this is much better. I also don't bake that much - a couple of times of month at most - so this is perfect.

It was a slow day at work, waiting for information from the upfronts - so I thought I'd start drawing everything there as well. It's all inherently junk - if it were useful, I'd have it at home, not at work. The first one - my AVID cow squeeze toy.


Moo.

whew!

One garlic press - I never use it, I use Toppits instead, but I planted garlic in my garden this spring, so who knows...

A bunch of bamboo skewers - very useful, mostly for painting.

And a batch of plastic knives - my former workplace kept running out of utensils, so I tried to keep a supply on hand. All I have left are the knives, which are rather useless at home.

I think they're headed the same place as the rivets.

Hey, check out James Gurney's website - the weekly "Art by Committee" posting is up, and there are some really fun illustrations this week (including mine!).

Continuing our march around the kitchen... well, actually, we're still in the junk drawer. We might be there for a while. It's a big drawer.

But at least this time it's useful stuff! Mostly. We have:

1. A cake server - ok, that's kinda useless - I always forget I have one and use a knife & fork the 3 times a year we have cake.

2. A big fork. For anything that needs a big fork. I have no idea what that would be.

3. A lemon reamer - ok, this one makes sense, it's like the cake decorating tools - not used very often, but when you do need it, there's nothing else you can use instead.

4. A pizza cutter - right. When was the last time you ordered pizza and it showed up uncut?

5. Three beaters for my hand mixer - the wire ones are indispensible, but I've never used the blender extension.

And finally:
6. The knife sharpener. Which I've also never used. And I know I SHOULD use it, but then I can never figure out the right angle to create the perfect edge, and then it seems like too much trouble, soI put it away and continue cutting with a dull knife. I keep hoping that owning a knife sharpener will make me into the kind of person that sharpens knives, but that hasn't happened yet.

There's a metaphor in there somewhere.

Yes, I know that this is actually my 19th post - it's the very first drawing I did for the Everything project. It was too big for my scanner, so I've been holding onto it until I got a bigger scanner. Success! At a yard sale yesterday, I picked up an HP scanjet 3500c for $10 - and it actually works. Not exactly high end, but it's as good as the one I had before, AND it scans up to 8 1/2 by 11.

Now all I need is a Mac. And a Cintiq. And a camera...

Enough about the scanner - I'll have to draw it later. The lamp was my grandfather's old-fashioned desk lamp. Which makes me wonder - if something is actually old, do you still call it old-fashioned? It was probably quite modern when he bought it. Anyway, it's beautifully designed, and I love it.

I'm still working my way through the "junk drawer", and I'm trying to figure out what exactly defines junk, anyway. These icing nozzles aren't totally useless (try writing anything in icing without them), but I don't use them very often, either - my mom is the cake decorator in the family. On the other hand, it's not like I can run out and rent or borrow them on the few occassions I do need to decorate a cookie/cupcake/cake. I guess they're a unitasker. At least they're small.

Well, that was... interesting. I decided to approach this a bit more methodically - I've started with the junk drawer in the far corner of the kitchen, and I'm going to work my way around the room. And I've run in to a couple of technical and philosophical problems along the way.

The technical problem is that I only have a 4x6 scanner, and that means I either draw small, or I scan in pieces. I used the patchwork approach for this post, and as you can see, the results were - interesting. I kinda like it, although it certainly wasn't what I was aiming for. And don't get me started on the fact that it took three days to even get this far.

I need a Mac. And a Cintiq.

The philosophical problem comes from the items themselves. What the heck am I doing with all this stuff? OK, corn cob holders - I guess I use them once or twice a year. But I also have a thingy for cutting open plastic milk bags. I never buy milk in bags. The bottle opener is a souvenir (from Malta) but we never use it, as we have several others. Same with the corkscrew. A washer and a pipe joint that I can't identify, a grip from a cheap plastic mandolin I don't own anymore, a strainer from my electric kettle that I removed because it kept falling out (but somehow I couldn't get it as far as the garbage, which is closer to the kettle than the junk drawer!?!), batteries of dubious usefulness, a lock , a bag of rivets (rivets? when was the last time I riveted anything?) an outlet... extender?

Good Lord. Now that I've drawn them - I'm getting rid of them. Except the corn cob holders. And the Malta souvenirs.

Does anyone want some rivets?