Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Lunar Eclipse




I was fortunate that the clouds in Anaheim cleared away just in time for me to see the lunar eclipse from start to full coverage. But the next time I ran out to look the clouds had covered it completely. I got my neighbor to come out to watch it with me and her daughter and her daughter's friend were so enamoured with it. Some of the neighbors glared at me and gave me the 'I could care less' stink eye. But it meant a lot to me to be able to see it...the last one for 3 years according to the news. That little orange disk that you can barely see is the total eclipse.

Friday, February 15, 2008

A Twyla Tharp Moment

So this morning I had a Twyla Tharp moment. So what if we are not still young and pretty...we can still dance for the joy of dancing.


After watching Twyla Tharp videos on Youtube.com until 1 AM last night, I actually woke up at 4 AM with her Percolator song going through my head.

Twyla


I feel like Johnny 5 sometimes...need more input. That is why I'm up so late when I should be sleeping. I started watching Twyla Tharp dance videos on Youtube. She is right. You have to do the dance because you are compelled to do the dance and worry about fame and fortune later. Because they aren't really a part of the dance. Too many people are putting the cart before the horse expecting the rewards before they've done the work.

I tried to add Blogger to my youtube account. But if it's there I can't find it. But then again maybe it won't show up until I type a current post. I'm afraid I'll have to figure that out another time because I can't stay up forever.

Tomorrow I hope I dance. My left knee is still bugging me.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Fashion Island






Today was a wonderful day. My daughter came to visit and we squeezed in a photo jaunt at Fashion Island in Newport Beach. Here are some of the over 104 photos I took.

Then while she was in a meeting, I went to the Newport Beach Public Library and found a gem of a used bookstore inside. I bought about 10 books, and the total was a mere $11. Woo hoo.

Then I had lunch at Baja Fresh. Then we went to Art Supply Warehouse on the way home. What a fabulous day.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

I made a sketch

http://labs.systemone.at/retrievr/?sketchName=2008-02-13-03-48-54-709327.17#sketchName=2008-02-13-03-52-22-8972.29

Experimenting with one of flickrs new toys.

This one matched better. http://labs.systemone.at/retrievr/?sketchName=2008-02-13-03-52-22-8972.29#sketchName=2008-02-13-03-57-47-171146.85 It's a green eye.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Counters and all that jazz


Today I was looking up flower photos trying to figure out if the photos I just took were of poppies or persian buttercups. One link lead to a blog. The writer on that blog had actually written a few paragraphs about poppies. So I decided to add her to my favorites. Here she is: http://anythingofinterest.blogspot.com/
Anyway,
I scrolled down to her counter and she's had over 80,000 hits! 80,000
I about did a spit take. Earlier today I added a counter to this blog, which is on 1, (because I just added it). I have no clue how someone would get 80,000 viewers to a blog that wasn't x-rated or about getting rich quick. It just shows you what quality writing can do for a person.

Life Has So Many Levels


Sometimes I have a big rush of enthusiasm in the morning. But my physical strength just isn't there yet after being sick. Or sometimes I'll have a great deal of physical energy, but no creative patience. I really have to feel fresh to do things like beadwork or drawing. Otherwise the quality suffers. Other days my eyes feel weak. So the trick is to find the right activity for my current levels of mood, spirit, health and so on.

The other day I bought a hat pattern. I thought I had the enthusiasm to make the hat, but I suddenly find myself intimidated. Usually then I procrastinate and work on other projects, but that just makes it more and more intimidating. Like my silk screening kit I bought myself for my birthday in Jan. I still haven't made a single t-shirt. I even bought two blank shirts a few days ago, but that's as far as I've gotten. The directions call for 'freezer paper' and I can't find it anywhere. I need to look at Smart and Final, but I already spent all the money I can this month. I can't buy another thing until I pay $200 for my car insurance on the 20th. Ugh.
Which means I can't buy the rest of the supplies I need to get into silk screening.

It would be very useful if I would make a sale on Etsy. I haven't sold anything in months, which means no income. I get tons of compliments. But you can't pay car insurance with compliments.
I'm spending more and more money on Etsy and the return just isn't there. My business doesn't seem to be growing at all.

I'm looking forward to Sunday. I'm going to an archery event at Tapo in Simi Valley. So I should have plenty of photo opportunities.