2 Down, 2 To Go

Birthdays are starting to be an every month occasion. With all the kids, their spouses and now grandkids it seems we are eating cake every few weeks. Now some of these Birthday's are for adults so there is beer involved and or a nice dinner spot. But on the other hand, we are also having parties that are made for the 2 year olds. . .like this year, we had Emery's last month. This month is Joy's and in October will be Josiah's and then Christian in May 2010. 2 year old parties are. . .um. . .active. Don't ya just Love Tucky's face? He never gave me a "Normal" face no matter how many times I tried to catch him on camera. That kid!! Then we have the Model picture series. Joy got a raincoat & hat which she wore while opening her other presents. I was just smittin. The actual party was held at Shady Dell, a private property that miniature Train collectors have made into a train park. Here we have Grandpa riding with Kentucky, Korban and Joy. We had Aunt Tammi & Uncle David riding trains too!












But here is a better picture of Uncle David.









Played tag with Uncle Nate.

















HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOY JOY!!

ARTISTRY

Artistry comes in so many forms. The filming of this is wonderful. A true film artist.

More Inspiration

I think I am getting better with the camera. I was working on close ups.
What do you think?
I wanted to get close enough without touching or disturbing the web.

The Garden is so full now and each day something new has popped up, or grown larger.
The snapdragons are lovely. As are the Petunias



Frog castle is for the one caught at Grandma Gobet's house.

The peppers are ready to pick but Jerry won't pick them yet. The cuke is close and the Tomatoes need about 3 more weeks. And the grapes. . .well, they look more plentiful then last year. I just hope they taste as good.







Can't wait till these are ready, Fresh artichokes should be interesting.


Might use this one as a background on some photoshop work.


So I think this camera is working out much better than my Point & Shoot. Both are Canon but this one has so much more to offer. So far it is worth the $350 price tag.

Berry Cute & Berry Delicious

The Oregon Berry season is to DIE FOR!! That is one of the highlights of the year for me. If I had to move away from Oregon I would have to vacation each year back here in July just so I could have the Berries.


The Berries are in full ripeness right now at Great Grandpa’s garden. (Leo is my father in law and is a wonderful gardener) For 3 years now I have taken K,K&J to pick berries in his garden. It is old hat to Kentucky now, but it is the first time for Joy. She learned that the RED Berries were what to look for. Even though they were picking Blueberries, Marionberries & Raspberries. Too many colors to remember for Joy.


Stuffing handfuls of raspberries into her mouth was the modus operadi for Joy. Once in a while she got the Marionberries mixed up with the raspberries. Marions should be picked BLACK not RED. She quickly spit those out. She found a green tomato which I quickly told her to put down.


Kentucky found the Cherry tree to be loaded and he could reach the lower branches so he was handing Joy cherries, which she quickly spit out. They were ripe, but they are Pie Cherries so not so sweet.

Korban was all into the hunt and eating every one of the berries in his container. He took none home to mommy.




Then they found the swings. Those swings have been there since my kids were playing in Grandpa’s backyard. Kentucky asked if they were tied on with strong knots. Yes Kentucky, they won’t break.







Joy enjoyed conversations with St. Francis. They could see eye to eye. St. Francis had conversations with the cat as well.


>


And the best part is that we found a FROG!!! A little green one. I put it inside a clear cup and we watched it. We took it home to show mommy then I took it to my house and let it out in my shade garden. We will see if he sticks around.
(Additional news: Korban and I found the frog on the side of Grandpa's garden shed. Today Grandpa informed us that he found a mother Skunk and 5 kittens on that side of the shed. It is total luck that Korban and I didn't find those skunks while chasing the frog)


My best giggle was watching Joy go down the line of raspberries saying
“lookin. . .lookin. . .lookin. . Dares anodder one!” And of course “Raspberry” is “wapberrwy” in her 2 year old language.

Now. . . .onto my bowl of Berries and Cream. . . .
AWWWW. . . . . SUMMER!!

Garden Inspiration

What more could you ask for. . . .natural inspiration. And right outside my front door.
This new camera is amazing, now if the operator would just keep her hands/fingers out of the picture!

Back to the Needle

The Needle calls. . .The Muse sings. . .I must follow.
Actually I have an assignment. Ring pillow for Sarah's wedding.
Her flower of choice is the Bird of Paradise. I believe that ring pillows should be something you use after the wedding. Thus not making it entirely in white.
Here is one side of the pillow in progress. All of it is in Silk. The white is a sheer silk, the flower is made of a hand dyed silk, done by Gail Flotre in Alaska. I must thank Gail for creating two silk scarves for me with a wash of many colors so I may have a palette to choose from. She does such lovely work in silk. Makes me afraid to put a needle to it in case I mess it up. Yet I know I have my own expertise and should feel confident that this pillow will turn out as I envision it.

I am embroidering with silk thread on top, you can see some of it already. This is a couching technique to give the stems some dimension. And yes, there is a loose thread. It will be "couched" down, but first it must lay on top. I will be putting in the petal details with this same technique, also with silk thread.


The opposite side will have Poppies on it. So the whole pillow will be reversible. I hope to finish it with Amber chrystal beaded fringe along the side. We will see if the silk can hold up with all this embellishment.

Let me be short

What happened to short stories?
A novel is wonderful to get “sucked into”. We even love those that have sequels. I subscribe to Audible.com a talking book website. I love to get books that are 16 hours long. I know that I can escape into "That" world for a good long time.
But I also love short stories. A short story can be read during your lunch hour. Or enjoyed just before bed and not have to stay up 3 more hours to see how the villain gets thwarted.
You probably remember them as those annoying/dreaded English assignments in school. 1000 words about your summer holiday or some other "1st person" or "3rd person" retelling of your life.

And yet there are very famous authors that have achieved their fame all through short stories.


Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes) began as short stories published in a monthly magazine.
Charles Dickens was the same. And least we forget our own Mark Twain The ultimate American short story writer.
Magazines were the vehicle for all these beautiful gems of escapism. The public craved them. Demanded them and once an Author had proved themselves they were launched into fame through their readers.

It must be the radio and later the TV that took the place of what was first the "storyteller" of the clan/village. When the printing press came about the storyteller wasn't immediately threatened because the common man couldn't read yet. But after a few centuries even the once esteemed storyteller lost to the printed short stories. and now. . .with our attention spans evolving and becoming shorter the TV creates 30 min short stories for us that we no longer have to turn pages to absorb. We only have to press the FF button to speed through the commercials.

For those of you that didn't know, or had forgotten, let me introduce you to the short story world that that has no FF button, no commercials, and is not scheduled for only Monday night at 9pm on ABC network. These pocket/purse size worlds are easily carried, consumed and recycled through Genre specific magazines.

I subscribe to Asimov and Analog, both are Sci Fi magazines that are FULL of short stories and novellas. These magazines are also a wonderful medium for artists that do Cover Art for these kinds of books/stories. There are also articles on REAL science.
What you don’t find in these kinds of magazines are pages and pages of advertising or ½ page articles on fashion or some Hollywood Diva’s divorce.

The Mystery genre has similar magazines as do the Spy/Espionage stories. Short stories are delicious appetizers, try them. Don’t let this wonderful literary art form die out. (these are links, they just don't show up in the normal blue color)
Eye Spy
Mystery (Alfred Hitchcock)
Strand
Asimov
Analog
I challenge you, this summer, instead of picking up a paperback book novel for your vacation read, pick up a Short Story magazine in your favorite genre. Devour it. . and tell me how you liked or disliked it. Tell me where you escaped too.
And if you happen to really like Sci Fi, I will share my back issues. And I have lots.