Oh the lovely pastels of Autumn?

I’m behind, again.  I made marshmallows…and they were gone before I could shoot them…seriously, Raspberry marshmallows have the be the most delicious decadence ever invented….just ask my family!

I’m making more for Thanksgiving, so there will be pictures!

I just want to let you know that while I was planning on making macarons yesterday, it didn’t happen…so they’re ‘drying’ as we speak, and hopefully I’ll have pictures this evening….

I did make some cake truffles…recipes to come in a day or so, when I dip them all.  (I’ve made about 6 different flavors over the past week.)  These are Red Velvet, and while I had every intention of making them a deep Autumn red, they came out pink.  ….sigh….

Okay, more in a bit…

And Wendy, if you happen to come by…I have a small novel in process for you…sorry it’s taking so long!  :)

mmmmm….red flavor!

I’ve spent the last week or so cooking.

It’s obvious of course why…the biggest food holiday of the year is upon us and I wanted to get a jump start.

Yesterday I made red flavored stuff.  (I wish I could remember if it was my brother and I when we were kids or some other family I knew that when asked what flavor they wanted it was always “red”)

 

up first...cranberry sauce! Then Raspberry Marshmallows!

 

 

There’s this other thing I’m working on too.  I’ve been a photographer for years…in fact it’s my first creative love after drawing…but I have never even come close to mastering the art of food photography.

Yesterday I found out that the Daring Kitchen is going to let me come and play.  (At least in the cooking part.  I’m only hoping they’ll let me in to the baking part too!) Which means that I need to really bring my A game when it comes to food shots.

So that being said, I’m going to be posting bits and pieces of what I’m cooking on here so I can at least start to hone some very basic skills.

I’ll also add recipes, because that’s what it seems like all the food bloggers do.  (Oh my gosh, have you seen all the food blogs???  I had NO FLIPPIN’ IDEA that food blogging was SO huge. – And yes, I live under a rock.)

I’ll add links once in awhile…I just discovered the huge amount over the past day or so…and there are so many really, really wonderful examples!  It can only hurt your waistline if you click…so what the heck!

Anyway, this post has taken me all day.  I keep getting sidetracked…and the marshmallows are almost done.  Tomorrow I’ll post pics…I promise!

Poor little blog…(or hey, don’t I know you from somewhere?)

So these past few months have really been a blur.  I mean a BLUR.  I spent months getting the house ready to sell…we went to Florida, found places we wanted to live, found people we wanted to work with…only to come back, (on the verge of accepting an asking price offer for the house!) and for very personal reasons decided to wait at least until spring to move…

So we took the house off the market and have been trying to find a way to actually ‘live’ in a house that’s been “designed to sell”.  (honestly, it’s not as easy as it seems.)

Through all this lots of things have been running through my head.

Pondering what actually makes a house a home has been quite popular really…along with how I place (or have placed) my priorities in the past…how I choose (or chose) to spend my time…the meaning of life…and how to make the perfect macaron.  (I’ll get into all that in a future post…)

Anyway, I’m trying to find a way to fit back into my life.  Trying to find a bit of an old cadence to my step…and it really hasn’t been very easy frankly.  I’ve tried working on art, cooking, decorating, sewing, even some photography, and I’m completely scattered.  My mind is racing around and I have the notorious “BUTTERFLY” syndrome, which just isn’t going away.  (what’s the butterfly syndrome you ask?  well…you sit there…focus, tinker, think, work…when all of a sudden…BUTTERFLY…and you’re off doing something else…)

So, if anyone is still wandering in through the cobwebs, I’ll be trying to clean things up…trying to reconnect with my friends (which honestly has been the hardest thing yet, and it’s horrible!) and trying to find my way again.  I’d love it if you stop by and chat once in awhile…though I won’t blame you if you don’t.  It’s been such a very long time…

Here’s a picture I shot on our trip down to Florida.  It was somewhere in Georgia…so that’s what I called it.

I hope you all are having a wonderful Autumn.  It’s gorgeous here…all red and yellow…and the smell!  If I could bottle it, I’d take a bath in it!  Happy Tuesday…and I hope to see you again…

Really, I do!

...Somewhere in Georgia...

Catching up…

Okay, as I said on facebook, I’ve been pathetic.  I want to fill you all in and let you know what’s going on…and though I wonder if anyone still pops by, at least it’s here if they do.

At this point there is about a 90% chance that we’re moving.  Florida or Texas are the main goal right now, but it’s looking more like Florida because the housing market is so reasonable.  And, moreso, the job market is much better.

Things here in the Midwest aren’t doing so well.  Unemployment is some of the highest in the country, stores sit empty, people are standing on streetcorners with signs willing to work for food, or, more likely, willing to take what you’ll give them because they look pathetic.  (Don’t get me started, I don’t have much good to say about that kind of thing.)

Anyway, point being, I have been spending every spare moment getting this house ready to put on the market.  I’ve always been a bit of an HGTV addict…and the people at Lowes know us by our names (which cracks me up!) so this is both exhausting and a whole lot of fun for me.  It’s like I’m re-doing a whole other house for a client, and I get to live there!

The yard posed the biggest obstacle.  Here in the “badlands” of Fort Wayne, they scraped every bit of top soil off to make our lovely little community.  And they left us with nothing but clay.  This, being the dryest part of the summer, has left everything embedded in a soil resembling concrete.  Most of my beds have been reworked with topsoil and mulch, but out back, behind the fence, it’s just clay…dry clay.  Pottery holding the plants.  woohoo.

I shot this last week out my studio window. It's days like that that make me sad I'm leaving. Indiana has been home to me on and off many times over the years. It's beautiful in so many ways. Harvest time is coming, and the country side will be at it's most beautiful. It will make it even harder to leave, I'm sure.

Inside we’ve repainted most everything…if it hasn’t been done it will be.  And I’m purging my world of clutter.  That’s good right?  Well most of the clutter comes from pieces of my life over the past 30 or so years.  I still have drawings and photos that I did in college.  I have books I bought for college…and every year since.  My library is either going to love me or hate me when I show up with 10 or so boxes to donate.

That’s only my studio…I also have a 13 year old…and 13 years of saved memories…not to mention things I saved from my Grandmothers homes.  It’s kind of funny really, when you do this, what you realize about yourself and what you find important.  (I own about 6 pieces of jewelry but drawers and drawers full of antique bed and table linens…)  Barry’s giving some kind of workshop this summer making art with this kind of stuff…I can’t even imagine how cool that must be!

But anyway, I’m rambling.  It’s been so long since I’ve written that it feels pretty good.  (All this alone time has been wonderful meditation really, I’ve come up with a couple of ideas for short stories…how funny is that!)

Okay, I’m done for now.  You can always reach me through flickr or facebook if you need anything at all.  I’ve been very absent, but now you know why.  I hope you all are having an amazing summer, and that all those daydreams are coming true!!

smooches all around!!!

xoxoxo

voodoo…

So I have no pictures today.

I thought the hard drive was back up and running, when I updated some drivers and it killed all my usb ports.

I want to know who has the pincushion doll…I really do!

Anyway, a new hard drive is on the way.  I’ll be back by the weekend.

I will be…

really!

(insert shaking head and wandering away flashy thingy)

xoxo

Thunderstorms, with some clearing…

(dahlia...)

So life has a way of throwing snowballs in the summer, doesn’t it?

So poison ivy aside, things have been a bit crazy, but nothing, not even the poison ivy has compared to the loss of my latest hard drive.

I’ve been ooc for at least 4 days…and it may be a bit longer.  I’m using my son’s laptop at this point to get online (because for some reason fios isn’t recognizing the network adapter it’s been using for 2 years in the new hard drive)

So I’m tinkering away wondering how I’m going to survive without my photoshop filters and my fonts (which were my biggest losses in the crash, everything else has been found..woohoo!) and figuring out how to add every stinkin’ driver that I ever posessed once again…

Life is insane.  That’s all, just insane.

I’m giving you a pic that I worked with just before the crash…it’s a dahlia…

Even I have to admit that I’m kind of tired of flower pictures…but this one is nice, and it gives you something new to look at.  Thanks so much for stopping by and for your nice comments!!  I’m teetering on the edge of  ’I really don’t want to deal with anymore’…so coming here, and over on flickr and seeing your comments has made my day!!

I hope you’re all having an amazing day, and I hope to be back and bothering you again in the next day or so.

xoxox

back from the brink…

 

(peonies four...)

I guess I fooled you guys didn’t I!?

Memorial weekend I did a bunch of yard work in the woods with my family.  Little did I know that not long after I would contract the worst case of poison ivy I’ve ever had.  (Seeing as I don’t think I’ve ever had it, I guess that’s not saying much!)  

Anyway, point being, it’s been kind of an excruciating week…and really, not the most fun I’ve had in the scheme of things.

I did rework the website again before this hit at it’s worst.  It’s much simpler now, but it may change again, I’m learning more each time… 

I did want to come and say hello though, and at least post a picture.  I’ve taken tons and tons of shots in the past week or so, and I can’t wait to go through them and share them with you…

I hope you all are having more fun than should be legally possible this Spring, and I’ll talk to you soon!

xoxo

newness…

 

(adventure bound...)

I’m back from a long weekend mini-holiday.   I’ve worked hard, gotten poison ivy, gotten a few huge bruises while dragging trees around and taken a few hundred pictures.  Time to get busy!

I’ve just opened my 4th Etsy store.  I did it because I like the stores to look uniform.  I don’t want drawings with photos, I don’t want clashing styles, and now I don’t want color with black and white.  So I’ve opened Tonal , a store dedicated to my black and white (and monochromatic) photographs.  I see one more in the future…but we’ll talk about that when the time comes.  And when the economy is bustling again, I’m moving it all to my website, which will have a store and a blog..

And yes, I have big dreams!  lol…

Anyway, it’s Wednesday.  I’m a day behind, so you’ll get posts all week this week.  I hope you’ll come by and say hello!

something new…

 

(typewriter detail...)

 

 

(sorry for the big nasty watermark, I didn't make a separate blog image. I'll do better next time!)

 

 

 

I’m working on some new ideas for the summer.  One of them is downloadable art and paper goods.  This is a the first notepad offering.  (I was going to include the photos here, but since I don’t have any examples of my drawings on the blog right now, that’s what you get.)

This is a notepad page that I created from some original drawings.  You can get this one here.  I’m also offering some photos for download in this section of my shop.

It’s something new…just for fun.  Well see how it works.  Until then, have a fantastic and safe weekend!!

 

xoxox

comfort zones…

 

(tulip...)

So I was wondering today, how far would I actually go if I didn’t have that little voice in my head telling me that I can’t?

I think I’m trying to find out!  

(that said, who knows where things are going…but life is good either way!)

xo…

Happy Thursday!