Artsy Fartsy

I thought that yesterday was Friday so today I’m not a happy camper.  But it is the Friday before a long weekend.  Woo-hoo!  It’s also going to be a celebration-filled weekend.

Tomorrow is our friend Roland’s birthday.  Here he is showing that sometimes you can’t hide the fact that you drank too much last night.

Happy birthday Ro!

Sunday is the 7th anniversary of my last trip to Hawaii.  What?  Should I not say that?  OK, fine.  It’s my anniversary.  Seven short years since I married my best friend, my better half.  Here we are on our honeymoon, preparing for our circus act.  This was in a pineapple field in Maui at the end of our Maui Downhill awesome bike riding adventure.

Why is it that photos taken on a film camera have a sepia sort of look to them?  I kind of like it.

And finally, Monday we’re going to my mom’s for lunch with the family and celebrating the fact that we’re not laboring on Labor Day.  I’m very much looking forward to a relaxing weekend.

Camera update: It’s acing fickle.  It works, it doesn’t.  It works again, it doesn’t again.  Very annoying.  I got the big bright screen again this morning trying to take a picture of Molly and her cute new haircut.  Grr!  In case anyone else is having this problem, I figured I should actually post the model so it’ll come up in a Google search.  It’s a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX01 and I love it when it’s behaving.  Right now we’re not speaking.

This weekend Luke and I will have our seventh wedding anniversary.  That means it’s the sixteenth year we’ve been a couple.  Yikes!  It occurred to me this morning, as I was filling out a form that required both of our social security numbers, that perhaps it’s been too long.  I stared at the form, completely frozen, with two sets of SS numbers in my head.  I just couldn’t remember which was mine and which was Luke’s.  We have become one and the same.

Maybe I’ll convert my Mary Janes to a set of lanterns.

(Photo, Croc Oween’s, courtesy of Roscom™ קרוקס Shield(:s on Flickr.)

Last Sunday I spent the day weeding my gardens and even though it was H-O-T hot, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking that this may be the last time I pull weeds before I’m raking leaves and getting ready for the snow.  Fall is on the way.

I took pictures last night of some of the stars of my garden right now, and looking back at them, you can tell that summer is almost over.  The light is different.  Fall has a light of it’s own - clear and yellow and beautiful. The kind of light you expect to filter through the orange and red leaves as to pick apples and carve pumpkins.

I love fall, I especially love the fall fairs.  I saw a commercial for the Big E this morning, I’m so excited.  But the fall leads to… well, Christmas shopping and carrying in wood for the stove, and five months of black dust in the house.  Oh, and snow, too. Can’t forget about that.  But for now I’m just going to enjoy the end of summer and the beautiful clear fall light.  It’s almost apple pie-baking season!

Yeah, I forgot to mention, my camera?  Remember my broken-hearted, self-loathing post (BTW, have you noticed how much I’ve used the word “hate” lately?  Sorry about that, I must need a hug or something) about my busted camera?  Well the public flogging I gave myself and the deep regret I felt for being a klutz must have been enough to please the camera fairy because she fixed my camera up good.  I have no other explanation, do you?  It dropped, it no work, I cry and rant, it sits on the counter for two days while the old Canon gloats a little for getting to swing in and save the day, just to make myself feel worse I turn the camera on last night and, by golly!  It works.  Really really works.  It was turning on before, but the display was all wacky and bright with evil vertical lines all over the place.  Now the display is clear and it takes beautiful pictures like before.  Like this one and this one and this one (OK, that’s not beautiful, but it’s clear!)  Hallelujah!

I hate Crocs.  I loathe them, in fact.  To me, they are garden shoes which have been strangely elevated and accepted as everyday wear and they drive me up the wall.  They are the disrespectful equivalent of wearing ripped jeans everywhere, only instead of showing off your knees, they show off your dirty feet.  I do love flip flops, and I love clogs, but Crocs are different.  I don’t know, it has to be the holes.  Whatever it is, I hate them.  But that isn’t my confession.  My confession is that I bought a pair last week.

I wore a favorite old pair of leather thong sandals to work and squatted down to get something from behind the file cabinet when R-I-I-I-P!  My shoe broke.  The thong tore completely out of the footbed and there was no way to fix them unless I used packing tape to tie the shoe to my foot.  Luckily I work next door to the university book store, so I went over hoping to find some emergency flip flops to wear.  Nope.  No flip flops, only Crocs.  Uhhhhh!  I almost didn’t do it.  Packing tape wrapped around my foot almost seemed like a better solution.  But I did it.  I bought this pair of sea foam green Mary Janes and now I’m ashamed.  I would have felt worse if I actually liked wearing them, but I don’t.  I still hate them and I feel embarrassed whenever I look at them sitting by my door.  I tried to wear them out, everyone else seems to love them,  but I feel self-conscious and truly embarrassed to be wearing them in public.  I can’t even wear them as garden shoes - they’re not comfortable.  Maybe I need to sell them on eBay.  Anyone interested in a barely-worn pair of size 8 Crocs real cheap?

Saturday night the moon was coming up and it was huge and bright and blazing orange.  Luke brought the telescope out so we could see the moon’s landscape and craters, and alien lifeforms and whatever.  It’s amazing to see the craters on the moon and think about how far away it is and how incredible tiny you really are.

I thought it would be neat to see if I could take a picture with my camera through the lens of the telescope.  I went in to the kitchen to get my camera off the counter and as I picked it up, the wrist strap caught on a book that was on the counter and the camera went flying out of my hands.  I tried to catch it, but it hit the floor instead.  I really didn’t think much of it.  First, the floor is laminate, it’s forgiving and not that hard.  Secondly, I drop everything.  I guarantee I’ve dropped this camera before.  Once, I dropped my old camera on the asphalt driveway at our old house.  It bounced and the case bent.  But it still worked!

I picked up my pretty pink camera off the floor, went out and tried to take a picture of the moon’s craters.  I couldn’t really focus through the lens and blamed the telescope lens, so I scrapped the idea and sat back down to watch the awesome moon show.  Then I wanted to look at the pictures that were on my camera already so I turned it on and looked at the display and saw the heartbreaking blurry lines that are now my camera display.

I think I broke my camera.  It makes me want to cry just admitting that.  My camera is an extension of my arm!  I take pictures every day.  I can’t live without a camera.  I plugged the charger in for my old Canon on Saturday night so I could take pictures with that one if I needed to, but the batteries for the Canon are weird and worn out and don’t hold a charge for more than an hour.  I’m so sad.  I’m so mad at myself.  I haven’t even had my new camera for a year!  I really, really hate myself.

Shh… don’t tell.  It’s a surprise.  Our friends Mike and Gina are getting married next month and this is the platter I painted as a gift for them.  I’m giving it to Gina tomorrow at her bridal shower.  I’m fairly certain that she doesn’t follow the daily goings-on here so it’s safe to show you her gift.  What do you think?

Yesterday I was feeling almost back to normal, so when my sister asked if I’d like to go to the park with her and the boys, I said “heck yeah”! There’s a new park in South Windsor across from the high school and if you’ve never been there, you should go. Ignore the signs everywhere that say that the fun slide and the monkey bars and the tire swing and all are for ages 5-12. Whatever. That’s a little strict for a “boundless” playground, don’t you think?

I was feeling much peppier, but the boys started to look strangely droopy and at one point, Alex told me to stay on the swings while he went over and took a rest on the bench. Actually, the conversation went something like “No, ME! You! SWING!” complete with crossing guard-style hand motions. That’s fine though. You don’t have to tell me twice to go swing. We took turns and Alex took the pictures while I played on the swings. By the way, the grumpy little dictator - he’s two. I’m thirty-one. Look who’s bossing who around.

He does like to take pictures, though. I don’t know where he got this ancient idea that you need to put your eye up to the camera to see what you’re taking a picture of. He was born in the age of digital cameras and nice, big displays! My camera doesn’t even have a viewfinder so there was plenty of sticky Alex cheek on the display screen afterwards. He did a pretty good job of getting us in this picture. And this isn’t a bad shot of Andrea and Cameron.

Then Cameron wanted to try. Cameron’s been taking pictures since before he could talk. He knows how to use a digital camera better than most adults. See how nicely he framed us?

We played some more and then went to an ice cream stand/petting zoo in Ellington, just over the South Windsor line. We had some delicious ice cream and I got to snuggle some goats (I really want goats, please can I have goats?) and then Cameron started to act funny like he wasn’t feeling well. Like he was sick. With a cold. So help me, if I get another could right now I really am going to look for that bubble to live in.

I’m at a loss for something to blog about today, but I’ve been noticing that every day I get hits from people searching Google for information on two major areas. The first is epoxy bar tops, Kleer Kote Epoxy, and making bar tops out of bottle caps. The second is hoya bellas and rooting hoya bellas. Folks, if you’ve got any questions or need recommendations, please leave me a comment, I’d be happy to share the knowledge! If you have any other burning questions for me, leave those in the comments, too. We could have a Q & A!