so real life has been... interesting this last few weeks.

My dog is limping really bad =/
He won't put any weight at all on his one back leg.
Yesterday, I had someone tell me that I should have him put down. he's only 9.

Our family friend is a vet's assistant, she said it could be a could be a ruptured cranial cruciate ligament (hope I spelled that right). That we should not take him to the vet right away, that the surgery to fix it is $1-2000, and that it occasionally heals itself if left alone. The down time for the dog is the similar whether you just let it heal or go for the surgery, but the risk of infection is greater if you do the surgery. Especially for an outdoor dog. Basically, save that option for if it doesn't heal in the next few weeks.
good news I think.... but he's in a lot of pain T.T

I guess we should have seen this coming.
When we lived in Slave, we took him to the worlds dumbest vet, who insisted that, "although his markings are perfect, he'll never be a good show dog because his back legs are too strait."
He's a mix breed =_='
she had said something about this causing problems in his back legs as he aged, but I didn't take too much of what she said to heart.

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my mom and I may get commissioned to do a mural (or 3...) for a lady in town. she has 3 little girls that love the Disney Princesses ^^
it all sounds good, except for one thing. in the oldest girls room, she wants Ariel in an underwater scene. The lady had already asked another artist to do the "waves" before she decided on adding Ariel, but this artist doesn't do Disney characters and only wants to do the background.
The idea is that, this lady will go in and paint the background, then I'll go in and do the characters.

There are a couple problems with that. the first being, that's not how it's done!
You're not supposed to paint the background where the characters go. The reason is that paint leaves ridges. ridges are camouflaged on the background colors: you don't notice them until you go over with a different color. by that time it's too late and you're stuck with a painfully obvious line in someone's head >.<'

also, I don't know this artist's style. Is it cartoony, Semi-realistic, Realistic? Does it look kinda washed like watercolor, or heavy textures like oil painting?
What kind of materials does she use? I also don't know what kind of background she's doing. as far as I can tell, she's just doing waves, no scenery. but I'm not sure....
and, thought I hate to say it.... I don't know how good she is. there's two people with "muralist" businesses around town. one is good, one is not. please let it be the good one.

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*sigh*
feels better to let that out.

gotta go now, we've got a family get-together tonight... although nobody has said anything, I think it may be my dad's 50th birthday party >.>
we shall see.
*tries not to get her hopes up for cake*