Shots from the garden and more Holiday Houses

My beautiful garden that once was nothing but a bag of seeds that I left in the fridge for what I thought was just too long.

Every day I am amazed that it is still so beautiful, so full of flowers and amazingly enough there are still new ones sprouting and blooming every day.

It is November isn't it?

I had given these purple flowers up for nothing but exceedingly tall bushy weeds but them they started sprouting these gorgeous blooms.

I love love love these flowers

Don't they just make you happy in looking at them?

They made this little bee very happy. He was sooo loaded down with pollen that I was amazed he could still fly. I'm even more amazed at the shot I captured here.

Want a closer look? Isn't this amazing? I love that his shadow was just starting to hit the edge of the flower there. I swear, I didn't even plan this, I'm not that good. Hehe.

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I finally got the rest of the little holiday houses done and they had their photoshoot.

Patiently awaiting their turn.

I think he looks like he has a candy cane moustache.

And he has a red and white stocking cap on.
Wishing for some colder weather.

Little Holiday Houses

Just thought I would quickly share a couple of the little holiday houses I've finished up.

The rest are patiently awaiting their turn at the camera but with the days getting shorter and shorter and my indoor photo space not completed yet, we make do.

Home Made Marshmallows

It sounds so terribly simple doesn't it.

Making your very own marshmallows.

I certainly was sucked into believing that I too could make my very own yummy little marshmallows.

Now I would like to point out that I'm not overly fond of marshmallows. Of course I like them but I could go the rest of my life without them if pressed to do so.

It's just that I saw some blueberry marshmallows and was smitten. Totally smitten.

I did some research, found some blueberry flavoring, ordered it and found a wonderful recipe on Martha Stewart.com.

Bought myself a cute little beater with a whisk, as per recipe, and a new glass pan.

Lined up all my ingredients and managed to completely botch my first attempt with two swift strokes.

Okay, shrug it off...you can do this. Lined them up again and "carefully" read the directions again.

It went horribly wrong...horribly horribly wrong and I have something called "Marshmallow" to prove it.

Snort *giggle*

I admit I totally underestimated how gooey and stringy said mix was and how completely the stuff could glue 'things' together. Things like my fingers to the bowl, whisk, counter, nearby television and front door over 100 feet away.

Seriously, this is not a mutant skinned chicken.

Oh I can hear you all now, hey that's not blueberry! This monstrosity was my test run, oh yeah, I'm going to give it another go. I haven't learned a thing. I can just hear my High School Home Ec teacher cringing from here, hehe.

Want to see what a beautifully perfect home made blueberry marshmallow is supposed to look like? Have I ever got the etsy shop for you. She's got all kinds of amazing flavors in her shop and when my next 15 or so experiments fail as miserably as this first one did I shall see you all over there. MiaMallows is her shop name and aren't these just beautiful marshmallows?

I just hope she isn't horrified to find her beautiful marshmallows any where near the monstrosity above.

Of course I find a much more helpful youtube video AFTER the monstrosity was born.

A Real Eye Opener

White balance.
I knew you needed it on your camera. Was relatively sure I had it on my camera. Really had no idea for sure that it was on there and no clue whatsoever on how to not only find it but how to use it once I did.

So so sad.

A manual you say! Who needs a manual! You actually have to read said manual and I certainly don't have time for all that manual reading, (okay, this should read...too darn lazy!), hehe.

So after dealing with pictures like these on a sunny day outside I kept getting more and more frustrated. I was spending ALL day touching them up in Photoshop which, I might add I have no idea what I'm doing there either, and that's just one one photo as well, or at least series of one item.
I left these as is with no touching up whatsoever just to give you an idea of what I was dealing with. Just look at all that blue! Outside. Sunny day!

Well no more friends and neighbors!

Same house, same day, same place no re-touching whatsoever!!

I found my white balance!!!

I'm so happy!

Hope I saved those settings on my camera as I have no idea what I actually did, hmmm...

Not Enough Time and Far Too Many Things

I'm still trying to figure this one out. Both Cooper and Emily were sound asleep when I wandered over with the camera and only opened their eyes when the heard the camera making noises. How in the world Emily got where she was is just beyond my comprehension. Silly little pill.

I've got lots of new work done but have been struggling lately with the camera and in trying to get good pictures lately.
I've been attempting to get one good spot set up (permanently) for all my picture taking and nothing I do seems to be working. Needless to say it's led to some very frustrating times.

I would LOVE to see a shot of your set up if you are so inclined to share...please!

Pierre and Simone. Named after my rescue Hamsters that I have totally fallen in love with! Don't you just love their little berets?

Clairee, named after the third Hamster. She's just a little darling. Both the hamster and this adorable little bird.

Little Stevie.

This is Palmer who decided that the "normal" party hats weren't for him and decided to don a pine tree for a hat instead. This little guy has gone to his new home in Barcelona Spain.

I wonder if he'll learn a new language.

This is Wallace.

Last but not least. My mobile home. I combined the big eyed birds with the chubby houses. I feel like a genetic engineer, hehe.

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On a really really happy note, I got a new (to me) jacuzzi for the back yard yesterday and it just now dawned on me that I missed a great photographic opportunity in NOT taking a picture of the GIANT crane that came to my house to move it...dangit!

My neighbor is moving and decided to sell me her jacuzzi as she couldn't take it with her. It's a 6 person jacuzzi so it wasn't something we could just lift up and move, hence the giant sized crane.

I'm just waiting for cooler weather so we can run the electricity needed to run it up through the attic and over to it.

I. simply. can't. wait!

A Small Offering Today and Emily

I see that I have again let time wander away from me but at least I was "semi" productive this time, hehe.
I've been working on getting some illustrations fit for buttons and pocket mirrors for, hopefully, a small craft fair coming up that I may or may not be involved in. Well shoot, let's be totally ambiguous about this shall we.

I love this happy little guy.

Finally got some small 1 inch buttons done in the bird folk. I've got some really neat things planned for more of these guys too.

Now let's go a little darker shall we, after all Halloween is just right around the corner and we all know how much I love the dark side of things.

Not so bad you say. It's just an antatomical heart.

Well, it seems as though George here has been wearing it on his sleeve looking for the woman of his dreams.

Fred was found wandering around the park looking for a snack. Unfortunately only this will do.

That's right, brains! And yours looks mighty tasty!

Loudly proclaim your love of the undead. You know you want to!

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Now let's discuss one small reason I've been so lax lately. The kitten. She was supposed to go elsewhere but has totally managed to worm her way in here tighter than a drum. And not with just me. With even the most hardcore disbelievers around.

When she's not snuggling up to the guinea pigs, (that's right, you heard correctly) this is where she is more often than not. Curled right up next to Cooper on Cooper's bed.

No, they aren't comfortable in the least. This is now officially Emily... and she is a pill.

Oh and stay tuned. I have lots of works in progress coming up VERY soon, hehe.

Ye Olde High School Re-Union and the trip to get there

I see by my last entry that I have been very bad about updates here. I'm thinking that my picture overload this time might in some small way make up for some lost time...I hope.

I have just returned home from a little excursion into the wilds of Wyoming where I decided to go to attend my High School re-union. I've found that it's certainly true, you can't go back home.

So much has changed yet nothing has changed.

I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I had planned to or even wanted to. It's funny how you get so caught up in things that after you leave an area that's when you remember your camera!

A really quick stop in Cedar City (sorry Kelly) and I thought these hanging flower baskets were so beautiful I had to snap a quick picture. Mind you, I'm in my car hanging out the window. The locals must have thought I was crazy. No, the car wasn't in motion at the time.

I stopped for some food somewhere along the road after traveling for miles in what I assumed was a wind driven dust cloud, which was certainly true in some areas, but this was for hours. It almost looked like fog or maybe like it was going to snow.

Found out later that there were some pretty serious fires around the Salt Lake City airport and the rough winds were certainly not helping matters.

I don't think it took them long to get them under control though I never heard more about them.

This shot was taken at 6 in the evening and yes, that is the sun.

This shot of some unknown, to me, lake on the way from Salt Lake City to Evanston Wyoming. I've driven this route a number of times while living in Wyoming and I don't remember this lake being there. Funny how memory works.

Beautiful but nasty looking thorns. I found these growing along the banks of the lake. I love the purple color.

Beautiful mountain just along the side of I-80. Had to stop and take this shot.

You know you're in Wyoming when you see signs like this. Friday night excitement!

For the life of me I can't remember the name of this place but I worked here for a couple of months in the summer between my Junior and Senior years when my parents moved from Mountain View to Evanston.

They had a piano bar and everything.

I saw a semi truck hauling just one of the blades for these things. I was as long as the trailer hauling it. Just huge! I love these things but on some level I just can't explain they completely freaked me out. There were so many of them and my years of reading Stephen King made me aware that sooner or later they were going to come to life and start walking around the valley wreaking all kinds of havoc...*shudder*

These were located on all the bluffs just outside Fort Bridger. Can't imagine what this cost them to do but I applaud them for all the effort!

It's like they are just patiently awaiting orders.

Finally got to see the inside of our old High School. Was it always this small?

We were the Mountain View Buffaloes. Who seriously thought that the color combination purple and white was anything but royal? Looked really weird on my Letterman's jacket though.

Our mascot. An actual stuffed buffalo head. Poor guy didn't run across the plains fast enough...apparently.
My locker is in this bunch but I couldn't remember the exact locker to save myself. I definitely don't remember being this short.

This was the day we decided to have an outdoor, in the park, dyed in the wool picnic. I think the high temperature this day was about 65. When I left home the low temperature was about 92.

Yes, I was very cold this day.

These are the wonderful little cabins I stayed in while I was there. They were so awesome.

In leaving town after all the festivities were over I managed to catch this little bit of graffiti. So unlike anything Wyoming normally has to offer. Makes me wonder if they know something we don't...hmmm.

Gratuitous cow shot.

Actually there was a story behind me taking their picture. It was out in the middle of nowhere just down from some railroad tracks tucked in a place no on goes to. I spotted a bunch of old cars on the hill below the train tracks. A lot of them were rusted out, missing doors, engines and in general disarray. There were a couple of really old buildings and tons of rusty "things". Oh how I wanted to stop and poke around said rusty cast away things.

There was a dirt road that led from the highway under an old concrete bridge hidden away from the highway and past these two cows. Once I got to that spot where no one could see me or my truck I started to have a feeling like I had seen this part in a horror movie somewhere. You know the one where you talk to the person on the screen, asking them could they be so stupid as to wander into a place like that just knowing something bad was going to happen.

You could see it, why couldn't they.

My arms broke out in goose flesh and I put my car into reverse and got out of there, leaving all manner of fabulously cool rusty things behind me.

As if to confirm my fears here's a great shot of the Devil's Slide.

Not too far from those pesky cows.