Pick up the Phone!

My blog has been calling me for over3 months. Maybe I should answer? It's simply amazing how busy I've become. Sometimes it's nice just to head out into the crisp weather, and take photos...







Happy Fall!

A Really "Fun" Weekend

Weekends are so much "fun" when you have a cold. Headaches, sneezes and coughs abundant enough to supply you for the whole year. Such fun! Runny noses, requiring half the tissues in your house. What glee!



Since I haven't (cough, sniff) been out of the house for a while, I have been occupying myself with reading Pride and Prejudice...



And having a little fun with Photoshop Elements. Recently I have been trying some new effects on my photographs, such as emphasizing an object by making it in color and the rest of the image in black and white...



And some artistic effects such as making silhouette-like outlines.

Finally

My blog has never quite lived up to the phrase on my header, "endless creativity." I should really rewrite it to say, "creativity that seems to have ended." But even that phrase wouldn't be accurate. I am writing a creative post right now! But all this is besides the point.

The photograph above is my idea for a "look-alike" scene. There are a series of picture books entitled "Look-Alikes" that are actually quite fascinating. The books are made up of photographs of everyday objects arranged into different scenes. There are parks, shops houses, and even some famous structures like the Eiffel Tower.



My photo is of a little bedroom. If you look closely, you will probably recognize some objects. The mattress is a journal, with little cotton balls for the pillows.



a thimble wastebasket...



a spool of thread for the table, a playing card for the rug, buttons and an acorn cap for the lamp...



Mary Cassatt stamps---uh... I mean "paintings" for the graph "wallpaper"...



a sweet little stamp card (with a little trick inside)...



and lastly a mirror on the wall. Is there anything odd about this photo?

Kitchen Concoctions

Recently I made a dessert for a tea at my church. In one of the the Martha Stewart Food Magazines there was this delicious looking Lemon Mousse with blackberries on top. I decided to try it, though I had a few mishaps. (I'm not very adept in the kitchen.)

Here is a 'slightly different' version of the recipe:

A few things to remember before you begin:
. Take out the ingredients whenever you remember that you need them for the recipe
. Clean everything up after you can't see the counter

For the Lemons:
1. Squeeze 2 1/2 fresh lemons
2. Start to squeeze the last half, and accidentally tip over the bowl of lemon juice. Spill it all over yourself and the floor. (Make sure that the lemon juice has not been strained yet. It's a lot more fun to clean it up when it has all the pulp and seeds in it.)
3. Squeeze a new batch of lemons

For the Gelatin:
1. Don't look for the amount (in teaspoons) contained in each package. You must scoop each teaspoon individually. Find out later that each package contains 2 teaspoons.

Next:
1. Mix lemon juice and water in small bowl. Sprinkle gelatin on top.
2. Pour mixture into saucepan and heat on stove until you smell it burning.
3. Prepare ice bath, making sure that there is too much water and not enough ice.
4. Pour gelatin mixture from saucepan back into the bowl it was in before.
5. Freeze your fingers in ice water as you hold the sides of the bowl in the 'too-much-water-not-enough-ice-bath. (You don't want the bowl to fall in.)
6. Take out bowl from bath.
7. Thaw out fingers.

For the Whipping Cream:
1. Whisk 1 carton of whipping cream with hand-held beaters.
2. Take a quick break. (Hold the beaters in the air while doing so.)
3. Absent-mindedly press the lever while beater is pointed upwards.
4. "Aaaaahhhhhh!"
5. Turn it off the beaters and clean up the mess.
6. Realize you could have been using the beater that 'does it itself.'
7. Skip a few steps, (this is getting boring!)

Until... You're done! Except... You forgot to double the recipe!



As you may have picked up, that recipe was a major hyperbolie, though the lemon and whipped cream scenarios were pretty much true. Overall, the recipe turned out alright. I myself wasn't thrilled with the taste, but several people said they liked it. At least they looked pretty in the shiny blue cupcake tins.

Emerging

It's hard to believe that winter has actually departed.



The melting ice and snow...



the robins flying in from the south...



the flowers beginning to bud after the long gray winter...

Spring.