SPC - in darkness

Self Portrait Challenge I'm back..... Yay, finally.

Oh and this is for Suzette

You see.... There was a little tear in the package and well we couldn't help ourselves.

Some of the inhabitants of our garden

An orb weaver


A Preying Mantis














a frog

I promised pictures... So here they are.....

Coming soon to a.........

Picutures!!!!! Brought to you by my brand new camera... That's after I get over my fear of the darn thing. Aperture and 'film' speed and this button and that dial. One day I'll get it... This morning we were messing around with it before work and it really takes beautiful pictures, clear and bright. I feel like I've moved up in the world of photography here. Watch out world....... Before we make our exodus we're going to get a telephoto lense so we can take pictures of the beautiful land that makes up this country. Oh, we have finally decided on what direction we're going on this said exodus we're taking the southern route interstate 10 From Santa Moncia CA to Jacksonville FL, transcontinental baby!! We've done the the 70 all the way across and it is beautiful. We wanted to do the 80 but we are going to be traveling in January in the truck with all our stuff and car in tow. Not the safest roads to travel going through the Rockies in the winter. So we'll be making three sides of a square, sort a. Driving from here to LA, see family, hang out, pick up stuff, drop off stuff, ya know. Than hop on the 10 stand in traffic for half the day trying to get out of LA and than desert, desert, desert in CA and Arizona, New Mexico, than Texas forever and ever, Louisianna - never been to New Orleans, Mississippi, Florida staying in the Everglades for a while and than up the east coast - looking for a different route than I95 to NC to see my Brother than 8 hours later - PA our final destination (deep breath). And taking our sweet old time the whole way across.. That's the plan anyway... May be tomorrow picutres with my new camera.....
Oh am I just the most spoiledest girl in the world?(yes) I got two packaged yesterday. I got a big box of herbs and spices I ordered last week. We're talking BIG like over 10lb. I got to restock everything. Oh I'm happy girl...... I ordered it all from Mountain Rose Herbs. I cannot express how much I love this company. I've ordering from them for a couple of years now and we're talking great prices and really really high quality stuff. You can really trust this place and I'm crazy about what comapnies I'm loyal to...

The good news is......

This is just a beautiful picture.


Ok this one has a little story.... This little sticker was part of a project of Andrew's. He was doing a propaganda project last year and this was one of the pieces. They were all made from recycle paper and glued with homemade starch paste and pasted all over, mainly on HSU's campus. There was a website where people would post about finding them and their thoughts. I just love the accidental composition of this picture.


Brooke and sister-in-law and good friend .I love this just because of the memories of that beautiful day.

that UPS says that our camera is in route to our house, meaning I'll be playing with my new camera as soon as I get home today. Yeah!!! But here are a couple of favorites anyway.

I love this one.......

This one was taken about 2.5 years ago when Kamryn was only about 6 or so months old. I took a series of pictures this one morning of her just doing various things. Then her Dad came to hang out with us and that's where this picture came from. I just love this picture.

Well......

Since I have no camera I'll just post some old pictures that I love....

two weeks ago..............

Let's see if blogger wiill cooperate and let me post some pictures. I finally remembered to get these pictures off Andrew computer. This is from the weekend we had Kelly, Brooke and the kids visiting. We had our usual pizza night, where everyone makes their own pizza. I didn't take these picts, since I am without a camera (she sighs).

It's been a while

Well I have to say Blogger has been quite annoying lately, which makes blogging not so much fun. I can hardly upload pictures anymore and I can't understand why.... Also my camera took a crap and now I'm cameraless. This is a sad, sad state for me. I am quite sad without my camera. Especially this last weekend, we had Andrew's brother Kelly his wife and my good friend Brooke and their two kids up visiting from LA. It was a really nice weekend and I have to commit it all to memory since there was no camera to be had. Well, Brooke had her camera but it's just not the same. On a good note though it costs too much to get it fixed, so we're getting a new one especially since the truck's fixes didn't cost nearly what we thought it would. For the amount we paid for our current broken camera about 2.5 years ago we can get what we've always wanted - a real srl, a camera with removable lenses. Yes, yes, yes.... I love the techie age, where things just keep getting cheaper and cheaper. The one camera I looked at with just the stock lense that it comes with, you can get within 6 inches of the subject. Imagine having a macro lense. Yes, yes, yes. Can you tell I'm excited? But in the meantime not pictures for me.

Inspiration....

... Comes in the smallest ways. Last night my Dad was telling me a story - he's the ebst story teller. His boss was asking him why something had happened - why was this____ broken. And since there was no logical reason for it being broken my Dad simply said "Well... Why did God make little green apples" and I lost it. I thought it was the best darn thing he ever said and than proceeded to spend this entire morning creating prints totally inspired by this little passing comment. And yes, that's my Dad and his very BIG attitude.

And since blogger sucks I'm only showing off one print...... Is anyone else out there having an intensely hard time uploding jpg's??

Self Portrait Tuesday!!

Self Portrait as........ Vectorized. Since this is one of my newest obsessions, I figured I should do a self portrait. I think I have just figured out posting on Self Portrait Tuesday, I even got my handy dandy SPT button over there. So we'll see how it goes.... If only Blogger would cooperate, AHHHH!

A poppy kind of weekend

It was such a beautiful weekend. It was actually hot here. We made some huge changes round here. We cleaned house this weekend. I think believe the amount of junk you can aquire over just couple of years. We have done our first round of discard, there will be at least a couple more rounds before we move. When you your moving 3,000 miles away you only want to bring the essentials, moving is bad enough even when your moving around the corner. After all this I decided to paint a new painting on a very large canvas and I just hate it. So much so I can't stop thinking about going home and painting over it. I attemped an abstract kind of thing. You see, at the office the walls are so bare and dead and I have three huge canvases at home that are either not painted on yet or just need painting over. I thought I could just do something easy and abstract, nothing too invasive and hang them in the office. Well for so reason during the painting process I deviated from my original abstract design and was feeling very inspired by a digital piece I did early (above). Lets just say it just kept getting worse and worse. Oh and also I'm using a limited color palette because I wanted to use up all our old tube paints (cleaning out). So things we just getting muddier and muddier. It was horrible, I hate looking at it or even thinking about it and it's huge. AHHHHH!!! I feel like I wasted so much time.... Why did I change my mind right in the middle of the painting.... Bad idea! Now I have to fix it, darn it.

I see vectors when I close my eyes

Megan

Heather

Me

Courtney

That may sound strange to anyone who doesn't play with graphic programs. Since one of it's definitions is - An organism, such as a mosquito or tick, that carries disease-causing microorganisms from one host to another. Than there is - A bacteriophage, plasmid, or other agent that transfers genetic material from one cell to another. And yet another - A force or influence. Boy, Vector has many meanings - A course or direction, as of an airplane. But this is the one I'm talking about - A one-dimensional array. I certainly am a dork. But what am I talking about? Above are what I have been making all week and lovin it. It's just that when I close my eyes, I see all the little vectors that it takes to make just one line of all the tons of lines it takes to make just one girl.. But look what you can get.

A new Blanket for a new Boy

Walking home

There's a new baby in the family!
Andrew's brother and his wife just had a little boy (about a month ago) named Maxwell... pretty cute huh? I have been wanting to make this darn blanket since months before he was born. But it took a while to get started, I had to order the fabric since I was feeling so picky and then there were other projects that needed to be finished first. I'm happy to say that it's going out to them tomorrow. I'm getting good at this finishing thing.
The fields outside our home have been so beautiful lately - golden wheat and amber colors, so during our evening walk we decided it would make a good place to photograph the blanket..

Fun with Inkscape

Our album cover

Super Sqrl and Her Sidekick Doctor Bunsen

These will be pins one day.......

Nothing new (that's acutally interesting)

Not a digital collage but an old collage I did by hand. I just recently came across it in an old folder. I just love the story it tells. I called - Midsummer Nights Dream - Of course..

Lots of new things at work though. Things that make my job 10 times easier, less stressful and even more boring. I can deal with the boring part now that I have my fancy dancy computer that I take to work. I'm discovering digital collages and re-discovering Gimp and it's wonderful tricks. I have been in Inkscape land for so long because that's where the web design magic happens, that I kind of forgot what Gimp can do. I'll show off eventually, but not yet. We're currently working on two sites - Humboldt Herbals and Gina's Holistic Nutrition. I love that so far everyone we've worked with have been so much like us - lifestyle, I mean. I am sure that will change though when we move away from Humboldt County.
If you've never been here, you should visit because there is no where on Earth like this place. The people, the land, the weather, the attitute and the beauty - as much as I complain about the seemingly endless fog, when the sun does grace us with his presence it is simply beautiful here and almost untouched. It never gets hot here (by the ocean, of course) and it never really gets that cold either, jsut damp. But if you visit at the right time of the year (which seems to change from year to year) you'll never forget it. Enough selling, the issue I have is that it's like void - even most cell phones don't work here. This void can be great thing if you're trying to run away from the rest of the world, than this is your place. But to grow and learn of the world, this is not the place. There are almost only one color (I personaly prefer all kinds of color)of people here and almost everyone is a least a particle green Earth lovin' hippy - this is not a bad thing but it's like 'preaching to the choir' here. I think we would be better off if we all spread out and covered more territory. We could reach more people, teach more people and open more minds than just just northern California. This is why we are leaving. I had already been thinking along these line when a friend and may be futrure family member - Jenny came up from LA to shoot a movie and stayed for about a month and got to know the area a little. She came for dinner one night and told us that she thinks we are wasted here. Our views, our beliefs and lifesytle are wasted here. There is no one for us the teach no change to be made. Well.... That set the ball rolling - thank you Jenny. And here we are planning our next move. Now since I moved to California all I ever wanted to do was move back to the east coast (northern) that is where I most resonate in this country, just never felt right on this coast. And since we know people in the Philly area that is where we are landing first. This is a little scarey because I left there a girl just married for two weeks and now returning with my own life and my not so very 'normal' views on life. Hummm..... This is quite a little stressful venture. First needing to convince Andrew that we weren't moving to the east coast just to be near my family - to him that is a big deal and I should want to go there for myself not for anyone else because I want to, not because someone else (Mom) needs me to. This was settled in my head but, he needed convincing alas though, I think only time will prove that. Than I have to continue to be my own person (of course) but I've only really done that here and with Andrew's family and my more recent friends so I'm wondering how that will be around my family and old close friends. It's the unknown that we usually wonder (worry) most about. This I know is the back of my head that everything will be just fine, I'm not moving 'in' with my parents and they're not the kind of people who smuther either. Just me worrying about the future. Then there's the little things - where exactly to live, will the truch make the trip, what the hell do we do with the truck when we get there, Jobs (the worst part) and stuff tons and tons of stuff that has grown over the years. I think I want to live in Manayunk/Roxborough area, I'm putting that out in the universe... That way may be someone out there is listening and will get us there. It's just outside the city, but still very city-like, old industrial area that is now very artsy and fun, but expensive. Keep your fingers crossed.

Happy 4th of July!!!!

It's good to be free!

No red, white and blue here, don't really dig that color combination. But, sunflower are about as American as you can get.

Things I've been up to lately

This is a little backpack made from old jeans for my Sister-in-law, Zuri. She is 8 (I think) and is the artist who drew this drawing of herself and the one down below of Kai (my and her nephew).

I've been going embroidery crazy lately. It's becoming one of my favorite things to do.

This pillow, which is filled with lavender and cotton and this bag is for my Mom for her birthday. The bag is made from an old favorite pair of corduroys. Gotta love recycling.





A bag for Brooke, Kai's Mom, my Sister-in-law ans very good friend.

I've been participating in the 'finish what you have' month. I think it was for a month - June. think your supposed to have a flicker account and show off your finished pieces but for some reason I don't really want a flicker account. Don't know, may be because everyone has one. But anyway it's such a darn good idea - this finish what you have concept - that I'm continuing to do it into July (and hopefully forever). I always have way too many projects going and always needing to finish something. I've actually been able to get caught up recently, I can't believe it but it's true. And here are some of the finished pieces. It feels so good.