Ever get the feeling you’re not accomplishing anything? Yeah. That feeling. It’s much easier to swallow, calling it a “feeling”, rather than admitting that it’s reality.

So, instead of awing you all with photographic evidence of all of the progress around here, I shall deviously distract you with random nature photos (and Charlie Daniels classics)!

Fire on the mountain (Run, boys, run!)*

Cleome, one of my favorite flowers.

Nasty storm coming in over the lake. We were on our way to town and just about got blown off of the road a few times. Visibility went down to zilch. White knuckles and all that. Pull over and wait for it to pass? Pshaw. That’s like asking a man to stop for directions.

*Fire on the mountain reference:

Okay, so I couldn’t find a unicorn. I did, however, find a magical dirty butt. That’s close, right?

I posted a couple of new things on the “For Sale” page. Take a looky-loo if you’re interested.

‘Scuse me while I rearrange the furniture a bit again.

I’ve taken down the ArtFire shop stuff on the sidebar temporarily. The kids and I are going to bust butt around the property in an attempt to spruce it up for (hopefully) selling. Sewing is taking a back seat for now.

I’m also about to make a separate page for things we’ll be putting up for sale, along with some freebies. (You’ll see it as a separate tab along the top.) We’re going to declutter as best we can over the next few weeks to lighten our load for moving.

We are certified car/truck/van slobs. I’ve tried keeping bags and little trash cans in the van before, hoping at least some of the crap would make it in, but no go. The trash finding its way to the can wasn’t the problem. It was that the can or bag would inevitably get knocked over and spill its contents, leaving yet another mess.

Best idea ever: Someone gave us an old diaper genie and, after banging around in the house for a while (we didn’t use it for dipes), I stuck it in the van. Perfect! It has the little pop-up lid in the middle that’s easily opened and close as needed. Even if someone forgets to close it, the opening is small enough that nothing falls out when it gets knocked over.

And, just because I’m still so friggin’ excited about the new mailbox, an interior shot now that I have it painted.

Buh-bye, Mr. Hacker. My email is once again my own and Yahoo came through for me. They restored my emails super quick. All of my contact emails are still missing but I can add those bit by bit as I hear from folks and/or go through old emails.

As a reward for putting up with this crap, have a sunset (pic taken by Isaac a couple of nights ago):

My yahoo mail account was hacked this morning and the person immediately started sending out texts, instant messages, and emails asking folks to send me money. In London.

*waits for the hysterical laughter to subside*

Yeah, really. No one that knows us would dare fall for that one. Sheesh. Still, I’ve now officially warned you all. I do believe I once again have control of the account but the jerk deleted all of my contacts and emails so I have no way to get in touch with some folks. Others, I had stored on my @ mac account so not all is lost. (I do have an email into Yahoo asking them to restore my account to how it was last night. They can sometimes do that, I guess. We’ll see.)

For your entertainment (and mine), I now offer you the following IM exchange between Mr. Hacker and my uber-cool friend, Emily:

speedwelding: buzzes you!
speedwelding: Hey, Glad you r here
speedwelding: are you there?
Emily: yeah
Emily: was makign coffee
Emily: whuddup?
speedwelding: Glad you r on here…
speedwelding: I was about sending you an e-mail now…im in a deep mess right now
Emily: why?
speedwelding: I came down here to London,England for a short vacation unfortunately I was mugged at the park of the hotel where I lodged
Emily: Really.
speedwelding: Yes
speedwelding: All cash,credit card and cell were stolen off me but luckily for me i still have my life and passports with me
Emily: That *is* a problem.
speedwelding: I’ve been to the embassy and the Police here but they’re not helping issues at all and my return flight leaves in the next few hours from now
Emily: How long have you been in England? and what did you do with the kids?
speedwelding: but I’m having problems settling the hotel bills and the hotel manager won’t let me leave until I settle the bills
speedwelding: The kids are right here with me, we really need to be out of this mess asap
Emily: How much do you need?
Emily: and which hotel?
speedwelding: The hotel manager have been so kind by taking me to a local library to shoot an email to you as i have explained to him that the bills is going to be taken care of by you
speedwelding: Believe me, am freaked out at the moment..
Emily: I can only imagine.
Emily: What did the doctor say about Steve? are they going to have to amputate?
speedwelding: My return flight is leaving in the next two hours from now as i earlier told you and i don’t want to miss it, all i owe the hotel is just $1,130
Emily: Really? That’s it?
speedwelding: yes
speedwelding: once the bills have been taken care of then we will quickly to catch my return flight back home
Emily: That’s amazing. How many rooms did you end up having to take?
Emily: and you didn’t answer my question. Are they going to have to amputate?
Emily: And also: how the hell did you find the money to fly yourself and six children to London, England?
Emily: Do you REALLY think I’m that stupid?
speedwelding: we are still on Steve matters, i will get intouch the DR as soon as we r home
Emily: Alrightythen. How am I supposed to get this money to you?
speedwelding: You can have it wired to my name via Western Union because i’ll have to show my passport as an ID to pick it up here. I promise to refund back in a couple of days once i made it home
Emily: Okay.
Emily: How do you spell your last name again?
speedwelding: Speed
Emily: 8-| your REAL last name?
Emily: …I really didn’t think spelling your own name would be such a problem.

I was reading some news here when something caught my eye.

Um, ya think?

I take back everything I ever said about wanting to live somewhere with mild winters and a long growing season.

Photography has never been my thing. I can appreciate good photography, sure, but do it myself? Nah, I’ve been content with family snapshot-quality photos. I have a pretty good little camera David bought me a few years back, a Canon PoweShot A510, but never bothered reading the manual or doing anything other setting it to “auto” and maybe turning the flash on and off on occasion.

When deciding to start up the new biz, I looked around at what I thought were successful ones or at least ones that appealed to me, trying to find what they all had in common. I did this for months. What did I find? Great photography! That was an absolute in all of them. Good products are, of course, needed but good products won’t sell without great photos.

I’ve been reading, reading, reading on various photography skills. I’ve been playing with my camera, getting to know it better. I still haven’t read the manual all of the way through but I’m working on it, bit by bit. I’m staring to lose my fear of playing with the zillion buttons and settings on the camera. I’m not good yet but I do sometimes stumble upon a good photo so that’s an improvement.

On top of that, I’m now starting to learn Photoshop, beyond simple cropping & resizing. With Steve’s help, I’m also building a miniature photography studio in the greenhouse for controlled conditions. I’m hoping to get that finished this weekend (the greenhouse is trashed!) and will post pics of it for you.

This morning, I practiced a bit on macros in low lighting. These flowers are about the size of a quarter.

Not too bad but there’s still plenty of room for improvement.

Another thing I need to really work on is placement and posing of things, maybe props. Taking photos of cloth things is not so easy, I’m finding. It slouches and wrinkles, poofs and smooshes. Oy. Still, I think I’m getting better. It’s going to take quite a bit more learning and experimenting until it becomes second nature — or even sixth nature. (If you’re really bored, click on the Artfire shop link at the top of the right sidebar to see my progress this week alone.)