Salty and twisted

Sometimes a design really just taps into my mood. This one does for many reasons, not the least of which is I LOVE soft pretzels. Have you had Ben’s Soft Pretzels? Those ones like dripping in butter? I first discovered Ben’s when I worked in a building in downtown Indianapolis that had direct access to a mall. It was glorious but did wreak havoc on my credit cards (The mall, not solely the pretzels). But it had both a Ben’s and an Annie’s. They were at different places in the mall so I always imagined this pretzel turf had been established and that bites would be thrown if they tried to take over each other’s territories.

Yea, fine, I’m odd sometimes. My imagination likes to run wild.

I am also a bit salty of late. This is already such a frustrating election cycle and the way that some people I have known forever are casting aside all concerns for their neighbors and honestly just being hateful puts me frequently on the verge of a fit. This is a year for me where I have done, in my opinion, a much better job at hearing and recognizing other’s needs and considering how my actions affect them. And I wish I saw more of that happening in my network.

Add to that some shoulder and wrist pain flaring up and yes, I am sometimes snippy.

I injured my shoulder a long time ago and didn’t really do the rehab I was supposed to as I was a teenager and thought I knew better than everyone. I have discovered that certain ways I sit at my desk really aggravate my arm and wrist, to the point that I actually gave in and iced my arm at work discretely yesterday.

Shoutout to whom ever left the ice pack in the freezer. So I am back to doing the resistance band exercises i was told to do and icing my arm and shoulder frequently. Amazon just delivered my shoulder ice pack early today, and I cannot wait to use that when I get home.

When I first made this design I actually forgot to make the twist in the pretzel and was just sitting there for over an hour wondering why it looked off. I finally google imaged soft pretzels, and immediately wanted to head -> desk. So I scrapped that design and started over. This is the result of the redo and I love it because it has a kind of wonky tilt to it, much like some pretzels do, and it quite frankly makes me hungry.

I had a lot of fun placing the salt pieces, which was my favorite part of a pretzel as a kid. There is always a place on the pretzel just loaded with salt and others that are completely bare. I saved the salty bits for last.

If you are what you eat, maybe that’s what led me here...actually, I am a fun Gemini mix of perky and salty at any given time.

I did some light shading on it but really wanted to keep it simple and fun. You can find this on my Redbubble shop. Stay tuned for some special variations of this in the future!