this is what i brought to work in my bag today

i got to work this morning and opened up my bag; inside was a comic book featuring a character named cannibal fuckface and a cider donut. i shouldn't have been surprised, i packed my bag when i left the house this morning. i guess it's just a reminder to check in with yourself once and a while and see where you're at. not sure what it all means but the donut was delicious.

i've arrived

• 4 years of high school during which time i was first inspired to become an art teacher by mr. young and ms. sullivan.
• 5 years of undergraduate study in a frozen wasteland called syracuse, ny.
• 10 years laboring away in a career i rarely enjoyed.
• 2 years of graduate school where i read around 500 pages a week, unpacked my invisible knapsack and accrued $93,000 in student loan debt.
• 2 years of substitute teaching: approximately $12,000 and considerably less respect earned.
• 5 months into my first full-time teaching gig on january 27, 2011 my first snowday.

it was all worth it.
sorry, my last post was just about a year ago - one incredibly eventful year. i'll be posting again with some frequency and get everybody up to date on what's been going on and what's coming up. till the next post enjoy the snow, sip on some chocolatl and hug your bobby.

old mexico

i lived in mexico for a year when i was in fifth grade. whenever i tell people that they always ask "new mexico?". if i meant new mexico i would say new mexico; now whenever i refer to mexico i like to call it old mexico. anyhoo... i'm off to old mexico for a week with shauna to find a suitable place to marry the girl. wish me luck keeping her out of an old mexican prison following tequila fueled brawling with banditos in some seedy cantina. hay que lastima!

christmas morning jimmy

christmas eve

just wanted to say happy holidays and show off the christmas card i made this year.

bird houses part 6

once again it's been way too long, especially when considering i took all of the bird house pictures on the same day. these are the final four - and most ambitious - of my designs: at some point, hopefully not too far off i would love to make some more.

bird houses part 5

here are a couple more bird houses:the house above is made to be hung from a tree limb, and the house below is designed to be attached right to the side of a tree.

bird houses part 4

here are a couple more of my bird houses - and two of my more "different" designs. this first one isn't really a bird house at all, but rather a bird table for placing seed on daily to attract birds to feed. it is made to look like an ancient greek temple. this second one is a nesting box for robins.

bird houses part 3

the bird houses are finally finished. i started posting about them way back in july: this post of some finished driftwood houses and another post of unpainted houses fresh from the wood shop. so as to avoid a sensory overload i'm just going to post a couple of pictures a day over the next couple of days.

i blogged a pie 2

some of you may remember a post from last year celebrating my first pie. this is a photo of my second try; it was far more successful than last year's - which wasn't all bad. the pie doesn't lie - yum!

welcome back to me...

... and hopefully to anyone that might still be looking in on my blog. it's been a month since my last post and to be totally honest i'm not quite sure why. this summer i churned out a lot of work - much of which is actually finished - so in my wisdom i'll kick blogjamming back off with some unfinished stuff. those of you who have ever been by our apartment will most likely have seen the wooden birds i carved for shauna for her birthday or may have seen the blog post of the bird i made for my landlady mary jean; well i'm back at it. these are a couple of pictures of some new birds in progress, that with any luck will be finished - painted and lacquered - tomorrow. check back soon for more progress - and i promise more blog posts. viva la jammin'!

too damn hot

it has come to this... i hate the heat and humidity.

celebrating 6 years of pure bliss for shauna... a.k.a. love is nice

shauna and i have been dating for six years today. i made this little drawing for her from a picture taken the day we were engaged. such a super lady!

housing

this is not the way i had originally planned on crafting this post but here goes; it was really supposed to be all about how papi had finally discovered the kitty house i made for him last summer. you may remember it as the one that i built out of wood, painted and then wallpapered. my sister knit a blanket for him to lay on while he lounged in his sweet little tudor abode. much like the old house however, papi never visits it until the temperature hits about 85 degrees. we have always joked that it's his summer house. after almost a year papi has finally taken up residency:all i can say is thank goodness his house is dry because 93 mercer apartment 2 is not. there was a flood from the apartment above today. shauna's closet took the brunt of it. thankfully there weren't any catastrophic damages. soldier on

birdhouses part 2

here is a first look at tiny town. there are 9 houses, 1 nesting box and 1 bird table in all. i'm in the process of priming them all for painting. i'll give them their individual due as i complete them. for now enjoy them in their raw woody goodness.

montauk part 3... birdhouses part 1

shortly before leaving for montauk shauna and i were brainstorming for ideas on how to get our craft on. we decided it would be super keen if i made birdhouses. while we were on the beach i started collecting odd bits of driftwood and detached pieces of storm-fencing and i was able to turn some of those collected scraps into these tiny avian abodes. this is a normal old bird house:and this is a tiny house that could serve no practical purpose except for heightening the adorability of any room it graced.more to come...

montauk part 2

summer camp is over and i can once again get back to blogging. for all of the blogjammin' readers who have patiently waited out this latest blogging hiatus i will reward you all with a little skin at the end of this post, but for now on with montauk part 2:these are a couple of pics from our day at the beach:this is shauna doing a super cute little landscape painting of the scene above while we were hanging out in the sand:you can click here to see the finished paintings. and here is that skin you were all promised:i'm pretty sure i already regret posting a shirtless picture of myself on the internet. i invite you to post your best hairy, tubby breast jokes in the comment section.

4th of july

i'll return to the montauk - yeah, i know we were there like a month ago - posts, and there is a ton of recent craft work to show off but first a couple of pics from the fourth of july. here's a pic of shauna risking a blow-up from heather - she's a fire-cracker - with her middle-finger shennanigins: we were fortunate to be able to see the j.c. fireworks from our vantage point: as well as the n.y.c. show: finally here's a nice shot of papi and his always exposive behavior:blammo!

montauk part 1

sorry bout the no posts. lame. no, f that, super lame. i'm getting back in the saddle again. shauna and i spent last weekend in the hamptons - montauk more specifically. montauk is not super lame, quite the contrary, it's super magical. over the next couple of days i'll be posting some pictures from the trip, some arts and crafts i've been working on and some fun stuff from the end of the school year and the summer camp. here are a couple of pics from the weekend that speak for themselves.

ah, naples in the springtime

this is a little pen, ink and brush sketch id did while subbing the other day at e.i. i've never been to naples before, i was looking at this comic panel by jean giraud, a.k.a. moebius: