Fun Mail Day + more art from my tablet (arent you lucky!!)

Some days I love to get the mail (especially when it is not bill week!)

Today when I opened the mailbox there were 3 fun surprises in there, along with the regular stuff.
First was my super fun gift from Kikkoman who is having a Chinese New Year Celebration and giving away fun prizes such as a silicone basting brush, stainless steel tongs, cookbooks, and this nifty ceramic spoon rest!

Also in the mailbox was a sample of Beneful's new Incredibites. I really love samples of things for my dogs. They are a bit picky sometimes and I hate buying them something new and finding out that they really don't like it so suddenly I have a not always small or cheap container of something be it treats or food or what have you that they will not eat. Not fun for my wallet for sure. However it seems that this new food is like doggy crack! Seriously!

Cocoa was first on the scene and actually finished up the bowl all by himself so I had to give a refill. (Please note, the "bowl" was not really that much the first go round as I wasn't sure if it would get the "sniff sniff ; nose in the air, walk away" treatment.) So I actually filled the bowl for round two and next came Annie.

She dove right in munching away. In fact, she stood in front of the bowl blocking which is very unusual for her. They usually take a mouthful then move to another part of the room to drop it and slowly nibble the kibble. (I'm a poet y'all!)

And in a surprising move.. there was another critter waiting in line for his turn ...

Here we have Dozer, the very large sometimes evil Siamese cat of doom. He thought it was pretty good stuff as well. I kept having to chase him off in fact since he outweighs the dogs and I am sometimes afraid that he will get tired of them and eat them for a snack!

The third mailbox item was a new magazine that I haven't gotten before. Spin Magazine in fact. Now I don't recall why I am getting this to add to my several lot and tons of magazines but YAY because it is a fun one!

Also, while looking up that last link for Spin, I just won myself 11 Swagbucks! 

What? I haven't mentioned Swagbucks before? Oh my goodness I have been remiss!! 

Swagbucks.com is the web's premier rewards site. Powered by Prodege LLC, Swagbucks.com allows web users to earn virtual currency by doing the things they do every day - search the web, shopping at their favorite retailers, and by engaging in other activities such as phone recycling, submitting polls, and completing special offers. Swagbucks.com is the only place on the web to get what you want without ever having to spend a dime.

and yes, those links ARE referral links *wink* click them anyhow!!

And, before I go - one more bit of artwork that I did last night! I am getting the hang of this tablet business I think!

Wacom Bamboo Tablet

Yesterday (holy cow was it only yesterday?!) I said I had wanted to get a tablet.
Well today I got a tablet! However, it was a step up from the one that I linked yesterday as it is the Pen and Touch version and I am having fun with it!
Since I love to take pictures I did the whole unboxing series:

Oh look! My new tablet! "A Touch Of Inspiration"

Inside the box on a nice black cover it told me that. It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling reading it. :)

Under the black cover with the note I found nicely packaged items. Nicely packaged items I couldn't wait to tear into.

Under the tablet was a little box with the install cd's and booklet. Nice packaging job, also nice was that it was all recyclable.items! No big chunks of plastic here, nice cardboard stuff that I can easily dance across and toss in the recycle bin!

Install was a breeze and the tutorial was very helpful however the lady's voice rather annoyed me. I did pretty good, until it came to using 2 fingers on the touch part. Seems I can't manage to put 2 fingers down spaced slightly apart at the same time. I will practice on that one..

Now, the pièce de résistance, my first awesome bit of artwork! Don't laugh at me, I have sensitive feelings! HA!

This is supposed to be our dog Cocoa - however it really isn't. I played around with some of the textures and things in Paintshop just because, which explains the beeeutiful grass and bubble cloud and orange peel sunshine.


Drawing with it is going to take some getting used to. It isn't quite the same as taking a pen or pencil and drawing on a piece of paper. There is not only getting used to drawing in one space while watching another (yay hand eye coordination - thank you Atari for teaching me that young!) but there is also pressure to take into consideration and a bit of a hesitation when I go to draw which can make my lines glitchy. That could also be on the Paintshop side of it as well. I am not sure since that is the only program I have used to draw in so far. 


Bamboo comes with Adobe Photoshop, but I haven't explored that yet. I probably will after making dinner - speaking of which.. must run since I am sure I am burning the poor pork!!