Month: August 2006

Photography

Happy Birthday, Andy!

Shelly

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Bumblebee on Joe Pye

First: Happy Birthday, Andy! And, Happy Ides of August to everyone else.

It’s a shpadoinkle day in the neighborhood, with bright blue skies, puffy, little clouds, and soft, warm breezes. The humidity has gone down, too, thankfully. It was thoroughly disgusting yesterday, raining on and off all day with a heavy mist that never cleared. August in Indiana is for those who wear gills.

Of course, since it was humid yesterday, I decided to prime two boards for painting. It took forever for the primer to dry, so I didn’t get around to doing any actual painting yesterday. We’ll see if I get to it today. It’s looking good, though! I’m thinking they’ll be abstracts, because I’ve been wanting to do some sloppy, drippy work. They’re kind of large, though, and I don’t have a good space to work on big, messy projects.

I’m really hoping that, when I get around to moving, I can find a place with decent studio space. I was assuming that a small, two-bedroom house would be sufficient, but now I’m reconsidering. It may be that a one-bedroom house with an attached garage would be better. That way, I could use the garage as work space. I just don’t know. Waffle, waffle, waffle…

Pets, Photography

Woobie Love

Shelly

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Harriet isn’t a huge fan of toys. She loves her red ball and she’s got plenty of bones for chewing, but other than that, she prefers to play with me. She does enjoy an occasional woobie, though. Usually, she quickly guts them and removes the squeakers. Woobies don’t last very long. Until now, that is.

I picked up a new woobie a few days ago. Harriet has yet to even tear it. She’s been playing with it on and off, and has had a few silly games of toss-the-woobie, but so far, she hasn’t de-squeakered it, or even torn it open. Mostly, she’s been using it as a pillow.

Art, Collage

New Mini Collages

Shelly

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What She Kept
mixed media: collage (brass beads, 35mm negative, yearbook photo, obituary photo, movie ticket stub, and fragment from 1854 patent book), drawing (India ink), and crackle glaze on 90lb Stonehenge paper
5 1/8 x 5 1/2 inches

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Mask I
collage (dried leaf, fragment from dictionary, fortune, diary key, and brass brad) on 90lb Stonehenge paper dyed with instant coffee
3 1/2 x 2 1/2 inches

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Mask II
collage (fragment from dictionary, altered Polaroid photo, and mirror) on 90lb Stonehenge paper dyed with instant coffee
3 1/2 x 2 1/2 inches

Little Boat
Little Boat
collage (fragments from dictionary colored with Portfolio water-soluble crayons) on 90lb Stonehenge paper dyed with instant coffee
3 3/4 x 5 1/2 inches

These are all rather on the bitty side. Most of my paintings are fairly large, so it’s weird to work on such a small scale. It feels more intimate, though, which makes for a nice change.

Photography

Busy Bee

Shelly

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My neighbor is getting ready to sell her house. She asked me to come over and lend some moral support while she took photos of it. She recently got a new camera, and because it’s similar to mine, I offered to share some of the tricks I’ve learned. Not that Miss I’m Not Artistic needed any help, mind you. When we were finished, we checked out the photos she’d taken, and they are lovely. Mine, alas, did not turn out so well. That’s how it goes sometimes. The pixel gods may smile upon you one day, and abandon you the next.

I did get some nice flower photos, though, and a couple of her pond. While I was wandering around the flowers, I noticed a big, fat bumblebee amidst the joe pye. He reminds me a little bit of a chenille pipe cleaner.

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Photography

A Mighty (Noisy) Acorn

Shelly

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I mentioned that I recently down-graded my parking permit from an A to a C? It basically means I now have to park on the other side of the lot, which ends up being a difference of only a few feet. The only reason I originally opted for an A tag was that my schedule used to be different, and it was difficult to find a C spot in the library lot when I got to work later in the morning. At 6am, that’s not a problem.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been parking in the C lot, and all’s been fine. I even found a nice, big tree to park under. I didn’t stop to look at what kind of tree–it provided shade and that’s all that mattered.

Until yesterday, that is. Yesterday, it stormed. When the storm hit, the wind got gusty and started blowing things around. There were no tree-limbs-falling-on-cars or anything that drastic. However, on my way home, I noticed a strange car noise. Strange car noises are generally a Very Bad Thing. This noise was intermittent, so it took me a while to figure out what it was. Every time I went around a curve, or up or down a hill, something clattered. And then it dawned on me. I’d been parking under an oak tree. The storm must have blown a bunch of acorns off the tree, one of which was now trapped in my roof rack! Duh.

So now I’m stuck with this noisy little passenger, because I can’t reach the top of my car to remove it.

(Photo: I stopped at the mailboxes the other morning to take a picture of mist rising from the creek at the bottom of the far ridge. The sun was coming up, and I noticed a lone pigeon perched on a power line.)

Crankypantsing

Tool of the Debbil

Shelly

It’s bad enough that folks don’t turn off their cell phone ringers (as they were recently instructed to do!) and that they don’t go out into the hallway to take calls (as they were also instructed to do!), but twice today, two different coworkers have taken calls that were so damned loud I could make out every single word from the person they were talking to. How rude!

Crankypantsing, Photography

A PSA About Baby Powder

Shelly

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Mist Rising from Fish Creek

Folks, if you’re going to slather yourself in scented products, please, for the love of all that is good in this world, stay away from the ones that smell like baby powder. Do you really want to go around reeking of something that is so closely associated with the smell of dirty diapers? Because if you think it’s a good idea for a grown human to smell like a baby’s ass, I’m here to tell you that it’s not.

Crankypantsing

Dis-gusting

Shelly

I just returned from the kitchenette, where someone reeked to high heavens of baby powder. All I have to say is that, to anyone who has actually had a baby or has spent much time caring for one, baby powder smells like ass. I think we can all agree that eau d’ass is an odor that has no business in a kitchen. M’kay?

Photography

Perseids

Shelly

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Mammatus clouds

The annual Perseid meteor shower will be at its peak this weekend. Because of the full moon, it’s not expected to be as stunning as it could be, but it’s still worth checking out. The moon rises at about 10pm, so the time between sunset and 10:00 is probably your best shot. I recommend slathering on some bug repellant and heading out to the back yard with either a reclining beach chair or a pool floaty. Being horizontal is definitely best, so you won’t strain your neck.

The weather here has been the pits for sky watching. It stormed on and off all day yesterday, and is supposed to do the same today. It ought to clear up tomorrow, though, so hopefully I’ll get a chance to see some meteors.

For more information on the Perseid shower, check out SpaceWeather.com.

Crankypantsing, Meta

Bouncy-bouncy E-mail

Shelly

Also! If you e-mailed me near the end of July, and did not get an answer, it’s likely that your message went bouncy-bouncy or was sucked into a black hole. I might never have noticed there was a problem, except that I belong to several Yahoo groups and mail from them stopped. After a few days of no Yahoo mail, it occurred to me that there might be a bounce problem. Duh. I don’t know what the problem was, but it seems to have cured itself.

So, if I didn’t respond, it wasn’t because I was ignoring you. At least, not on purpose. If it was something important, please to be resending advTHANKSance!1!!!

That is all.