Sorry Blogger :(

Dear Blogger,

There are several reasons why I have decided to check out another style of blogging machines be cause of a few important facts. 

1. I have issue with your photo posting choices. 

2. It is difficult to arrange the post the way I want it to  be seen. 

3. For some reason  you can not cut and paste text into the posting window, how annoying! 

4. Blogger will not allowed to see the post as a whole. there is not scrolling up and down the post so see how its going. It is sort of a suprise what it will look like when I hit the preview button. 

So this means i must start testing a new blog.

Maybe I will be back but as of now ...

See you later Blogger. 

Secretly A Mermaid

Can I eat them?

No Spike they are for watching silly cat.

Moved a an fifty gallon aquarium last weekend. Tons of fun. I could not have done it with out JFM or my mom. The particular aquarium has been in my family all of my life. It has been running at my mothers house for several years without anything in it. This may seem strange that someone might do this but I guess is you knew the story then it would not seem so weird. 

Spike helped of course. Here he is inspecting the fish tank 

buckets and equipment. Must have a nice fishy smell. (he love fish of course)

Back to the story, mom had the tank set up. It had very nice tetras hanging around minding their own business but there was an infiltrator! 

The fresh water snail!

 Not the golden big kind that are the size of a quarter, the little bitty kind that look like rocks. Which is exactly how they got there. The were snuck in! 

My mom blames the real plants she tried to maintain, which died. (she also has trouble with the land kind, they often die) 

Its not that she did not like the snails, they just reproduced so much that here were hundreds of them. She would spend hours trying to get every last on out of the tank. She stood on stools to reach them, she used snail-be-gone stuff. She would spring up from the table and reach into the tank...this went on for years.  Eventually the fish began to die. Not sure from what but they eventually were gone. She tried freeing them, well the rocks from the tank. 

Still snails. 

Eventually they all died, I guess from lack of food. No fish went back into the tank for year until...

The pink convicts:

Pink Convicts are aggressive cichlid fish from South America. They might eat the fish you have and each other. Mom hates cichlid. Mostly cause they watch you. This offends  her. 

A friend of hers found out that she had no fish in her tank and decided that she had some of hers. Apparently the breed easily. Eek!

My mom did not know how to say no since she didn't have any fish. How could she say no?

 And now I have the tank so I own them and want them gone to.  These tine pink fish have been eyeballing the cleaning catfish and alga eaters. 

I would prefer some nice Danios and tetras. So I have posted them on Freecycle. They could be yours!

                                                       Here is spike watching his cat tv!

The First Blank Book

I found this book in a local art store in my high school home town.  I liked to visit this store all the time. I have used the book as a homemade yearbook, scrapbook journal type book of inspiration. It holds materials, messages and pages designed by friends and students.  Its name is written on the cover. Since I started it back on July 16 of 1994 it has grown to be an old book. And like many of my books, remains unfinished. 

Many years have passed since I have updated it or even shared it with anyone. You can see from its condition it is warn. It had been repaired once (note the green/gray thread along the left side) many years ago and is really starting to show its age. It is in need of more repair both inside and out.

I have bought another blank book that was to be a newer verson of the this type of book but I have not started. 

Another blank book for the collection. I dont know if I can give up in quite yet.  

Last interior cover:

     In high school my art teacher really liked my book. She thought it was a great idea. I thought wow she actually likes something I did. But much to my horror she like it so much she made it a extra credit assignment. I didn't bring it in for people to copy it. I wish I had not shared it. 

 GUrrrrrrrrr... SO other people copy my ideas and not in their style but in a exact style. It wasn't like the did it on their own. I did not get any credit for my book. It didn't count as a sketch book for me. 

I was offended. 

Opening page:

       The opening page has the date and year written in pen and ink. It is decorated by paint using the negative space from a doily to create a design. One of my favorite flowers in the right hand corner. The last page of the book has the actual doily and will hold the fin

ish date. The pages are filled with celebrations of the books birthday, friends and memories. The things, events and people I want to remember

        Lots of the pages include 4-H experiences since it was a big part of my life in the early years of this book. One of my memorable pages is this :

I love this book. But I have not written in it for many years. The last entry was Dec 20th 1999 on my way to Florida to spend christmas with my mother and grandmother. That was the last time I saw my grandmother. She passed away in February 2000. The last friend who wrote in it was MCC. My friend and I have not spoken in over a year. My last 4-h camp was Diversity camp in 1998. I loved this camp. Seems the last few entries are sad.  

      But even more sad is how out of date it has been. Do you think that ten years of nothing is enough to claim the book dead? Should I finish this one? or start the new one? 

I hope to restore my love for this book in the coming year and regenerate its previous happy memories. Either in this book or a new one. 

Front Interior cover:

More Puppies :)

More puppy fun! Hope you enjoy!

Puppies

The latest in Puppies!

The missing blue book

I seem to have a collection of blank books. 

My favoriet is a blue leather bound book with

marble edges. I have been stalking this book at Borders Book store for months. They wanted way too much money for such a small book. What was I going to do with it anyway, keep it blank? This does not make me happy.  I check on it every time I visit it here there. I always think Im going to the magizines but then there's the blank book section, right there, suck in like a tracker beam.

The book is $30 dollars! It must be some mistake surly it has been mismarked. Nope. The store confirmed that they wanted too much for a little book. AND its the only one of its kind. I tried to forget about this book. For some reason I could not bring myself to use a 40% off coupon and just get the damn book. 

And then it disappeared...

Now I have had moments of panic that someone had finally purchased my book. But I have usually found it misplaced, moved, hidden by inferior blank books. Once is was unlocatable but I found it the next time I went. Now we are playing hide and seek? But this time it was gone. Poof :(

I am sucker for blank books? Inspiration? I have a whole collection of blank books as you seen but this one was special. And now it is forever special for the book came back to me.

On my birthday it appeared by way of my best friend Amanda. I forgot I had stalked the book in her presence . Not sure she should have paid for that much for that blank book (hope she used the coupon) but I am glad she did!

Of course I can't bring myself to write in it :)

Blank books of inspiration

There is a Sherman Williams commercial on tv that explains my love for blank  books. As an art teacher I am always looking for ways to inspire students to creative. Not the "Lets destroy this project!" to piss of Ms Hurd kind of way.  I want them to think no be torchard even if the scream a bit when they have to think. I really like this site: Visual DNA. It gives you a real idea of all the different choices we have. And the ones we make without realizing we had made them in the first place. 

I guess its the blank canvas of possibilities. Artist block is always and it can be difficult some times. De

voting a time and place for creative energy is tough. Especially when I spend all day getting oth

er to be creative. 

 

                                                                    

An idea in your 

head can seem so different on paper or out loud. Getting it to come out right is a challenge but trying to get it right is part of the process. People can not see in you head and understand what you are trying to do. There are lots of ways to show something, coded or not. I like to be cryptic to a degree about personal art. It is a delicate balance of communication. I spend a lot of time getting the image together to say exactly what I want people to get with out being direct. My professor in college said I was a "bitch" because I never really explained what it was about. He meant it in a figurative way of course. 

Blank books help me with my lostness and inspiration. I have one for every subject of my interest. Knitting, printing, art projects for me, art projects for my students, recipes,  mix tape list, memories, dreams, friends, trips. Some of these books overlap and are combinations of themes and time based i.e. sketch book from high school, or one from college.  

I am a sucker for inspiration apparently. My journal I sometimes write it is a blank hard bound sketch book. I have several blank books that I have started and abandon. I

Does anyone else think like this?