My New Favorite Funny Site

This is just is good as Cake Wrecks.

It's when things on etsy go wrong and some wonderful my kinda commentary.

http://www.regretsy.com/

What the...is this a new sex toy?

'Cause you need a dozen.

I found this at work it just leaves me laughing and scratching my head.

The inside wasn't nearly as fun.

Pumpkin Week Friday

If you're going to go store bought, it's just like my philosophy of eating out. It should be something that I either don't know how to make or just plain takes too much time.

Otherwise I'm just disappointed.

Shiny blown glass fits the bill.

Pumpkin Week Thursday

Ok, so I missed a day, sorry. Mmm, white pumpkins.

Martha has ruined them a little for me, but I still like them alot.

Those of us who just aren't like the others in some way probably can relate.

My most fave are the white jack-be-littles.

Yes Lynn, I did this while you were trying

to gnaw your arm off in the meeting to escape XO Billy :)

Pumpkin Week -Punkin' Wrecks

Like one of my favorite blogs Cake Wrecks- well, here are some punkin's for you. The cat isn't so bad.

Why would you buy these pre-wrecked and not have the pleasure of creating a wreck of your very own? After all it's the act of creation and not the finished product.

These might be exceptions.


And the drum roll please....

Friends don't let friends paint pumpkins after too much hard cider. Eesh.

Ok Punkin' Week- Monday

Elise started it up, and Graciel is still jet lagged so I'll try and fill in while trying to make someone else's Halloween costume.

Inspire Me Mondays 14 on Tuesday

Sorry, I'm behind. Fall is upon us, tons of changes. I haven't felt like posting up until now.

I've finally gotten rid of my headache I've had since mid July. But now my Strudel has broken his foot. It's always something.

Much Love to the Gypsy King for everything I will and won't hear about. Thank you.

Inspire Me Mondays 13

It's been a week of big changes, things breaking, wind blowing, friends flying off

for life changing adventures. All of them alright. So here's to big change.

My gift in this was finally remembering why I want to paint.

It's not about what things look like, but what things feel like.

I got rid of the mirror on my studio table and the silly notion that things need to look a certain way. That's always the hardest to do, and remember. More to come.

For beloved travelers, we'll leave the light on.

Inspire Me Mondays 12

Reflections & that sort of through the looking glass don't quite know where you are sort of image or feeling. I guess another term would be the transitional phase, the in-between place. I really like these 2 photos they are sky, wood, water and rock all at once, and nothing at all. I think I'll continue looking for more examples of this phenomenon to help guide me on my way to change.

Rock Week Saturday

I love interesting architecture especially with carved columns and capitals- with the human touches. I'm also intrigued by how a lot of modern buildings are nothing more than styrofoam with a cement veneer stripped of all humanity. Guaranteed to last about a week and a half. The Ancient treasures of architecture are all stone- some in good repair, some crumbling back to the dust they were born from. The hands that built them and that have touched them for the past centuries must have left their energies in the stones. The stones in my pocket have absorbed me and I have absorbed their energies with lots and lots of touches.

Rock Week Friday- Peace Rocks

This photo was part of our original discussion about rocks and earth works. This was on a beach at Olcott, NY. I was taking it from above and couldn't get down on the beach for a better view. I'm all for things like this. This invites others to play, leave their own mark and in the etch-a-sketch area of the beaches it vanishes without a trace. Perfect for temporary artwork. Love the rock stacking in the streams for the same reasons. The pure pleasure of doing it without pretense, no admission fee and think how you feel when you stumble upon someone else's creation. You get that little ahhh and a smile. In a sense creating that warmth and joy that we need so much in lives- just from rocks. The problem of getting older and forgetting how to play is serious. Don't you think more bored meetings should take place in a creek building a dam out of rocks? Or some tense negotiations should be wandering along the shore looking for shells and rocks skipping stones as they go? Wouldn't things just work better? No one really needs to go farther than where they are to do this. I'm guessing there are few places on earth without an abundance of rocks. The Sahara from the looks on TV & the Antarctica but beyond that?? I think were good. We'll just have to spread the word-

Peace Rocks.

Rock Week Thursday

This is the stack of rocks in my backyard. When they're snowed under it's 3 feet deep in the backyard. They're old foundation stones from a house we used to live in. Naturally, I had to lug them when we moved. I will get a hernia when we move again, but hey,

they're my rocks. I got'z to. What's one more collection?

Rock Week Wednesday

Oi, Luckily these images don't need a lot of words. The classic combination of rock and water, pretty much like peanut butter and chocolate in my book. Jelly is just gross with pb- maybe too much Goober Grape as a kid. Anyway. The water sculpted layers with the falling water, music for the eyes and ears. This is just outside of Ithaca, NY. behind Buttermilk Falls. Go there and stop by Moosewood for lunch or dinner. A little farther down the road go to

The Orchid Place and adopt yourself an orchid or two. Makes for a full yet satisfying day. Have fun!

Rock Week Tuesday

This is my best friend's husband, showing off his mad stacking abilities. This was at Muir Beach also. He had the best time. It was kind of like one of those birds doing the mating dance, calling his wife over to inspect just how big he could make his towers, before they would collapse under their own weight or precarious situation. It was adorable. Certainly one way to rock someone's world.

Inspire Me Mondays 11 Rock Week

The rock in the top center is with it's portraits of where I found it, Muir Beach, California. Undoubtedly someone placed it on the larger rock shortly before I found it, the wave action would have knocked it off long ago. This is one of my very favorite rocks. It reminds me of special friends and one of the best trips I've ever been on. More of that trip tomorrow.

Once upon a time a friend told me a story about an acquaintance. She would go for walks with people when she first met them and casually pick up an interesting rock and hand it to them. She used the rock to help read people. If they dropped the rock they probably didn't match her interests but, if they slipped it in their pocket then they did. Match.com probably think of this one.

Rocks, the building blocks of the planet, will be around far beyond romance and sentiment. They've seen it all before, the world goes on around them, the rise, the fall- even as they are being ground away to sand, new ones are being created.

Do rocks have souls & love lives?

Inspire me Mondays 10

Sorry I missed 2 weeks of Mondays, one week not so inspired, last week I was on vacation

and met my little special friend. The duck with the owie wing.

I've been to this

particular lake in the past and have never seen a single duck.

This year, 8-10 constant companions and a visiting flock of 8 Canadian Geese.

It was a family vacation- not my side, so it was at least fun.The best thing for me was the ducks. I've never been so up close or pecked in the butt (thanks to my little friend) by a duck.

One thing I did miss was my sister, naturally I was thinking just like her.
Visit Lucky Danger for pretty much the same photo of milkweed. If it would have had a second pod I would have taken it. We take the same photo often. Makes me laugh.


I've been the duck with the broken wing. Bullied and forced out of the way by the others, never quite fitting in. Spending lots of time alone. I think that's why I liked him best. He would come up and stand on the beach next to me and look up waiting for food.
The innocence in his little ducky eyes.
If I had a farm I would definitely have a lake and ducks.
I'm really not quite sure what to make of this summer of feathers.
I understand the metaphors of flying, of my introduction to higher realms, to death,
to living in two realms. I haven't had the ah-ha moment yet.
Maybe it will turn out to be just another peck on the butt.

Inspire Me Mondays 9

Ken. These are my strudels drawings from the figure drawing class.

He always has a different viewpoint than I do. We have different focuses and aims even though we may be in similar places. Two nights ago in two seperate dreams I dreamed we were singing together and I was harmonizing with him. If only I sounded so good for real. He always can reign me in when I'm buzzing around to much and has a way of cutting through crap and making it very simple. His specialty is coming up with a plan from left field specifically designed to either give me a tick or a headache. He's a master at it. I'd have no other way. Here's to differences, similarities and a whole lot of time spent together and lots more to come.

Laughed My Butt Off

Please check this out http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/. Some are awesome, some are in the hall of shame for a good reason. Love it. Love it. When baking creativity runs amuck- sheer delicious poetry. Some of these beauties I wouldn't even get near my mouth. Next vacation you bet I'm taking my camera to the bakery.

Inspire Me Mondays 8

And I wondered what I was going to write about today....

As I was leaving work, I stopped to talk to a friend who just returned from vacation and also pick up something for dinner. As we were talking an older customer in a martcart was driving by and started to drive over my shoe. Wait it gets better..

He stopped the martcart on my shoe.

And then told me it was my fault for being in the way.

Then drove off on his merry way. No apologies, no nothing. Luckily it was just my shoe and not my toes. I was shocked, appalled and turned all 57 shades of red possible.

I am so done with working there.

This is the final quit talking about moving on and taking baby steps,

get your ass in gear and get the hell out.

Yes, I shouldn't have been there at all. And If I was I would have been a customer,

and a mean little one at that- my yellow chakra be damned.

But for now I have to go start painting the escape route.

Inspire Me Mondays 7

Drawing.

I love drawings. I used to fill a sketch book in 2 weeks. But now.. 10 years if I'm lucky.

I've been going to figure drawing on Wednesday evenings to get my whatever back in shape. It's maddening because I used to be able to do this with no effort at all. I've let it rust. I've had to rediscover how to look & how to get that down on paper. The longest poses have been only 20 minutes. These are decent but, not where I want to take them.

Other Views of Vulcan

Inspire Me Mondays 6 -Sort of..

I took a trip to the home planet, Vulcan, this weekend. This is where I grew up. It's kind of like alcohol- warm yet burns as you swallow it, changes your perceptions and very bad for me. In my family, we are all smarty pants, judgy and obviously right about everything. That's on a good day. And we're not really all that f-ed up on the scale and yet we are in our own special ways. As the kids we get the double dose - Mom's insecurities,martyrdom and stubborness and Poopdeck's know-it-all stubbornness. Ah yes, Dad's nickname is Poopdeck from Poopdeck Pappy, Popeye's father. Happened after I left the nest.
I really got alot of great things from both of them. This weekend however, magnified the bad parts of my Poopdeckishness and my Momishness & I really didn't like it. So the inspire me is the left handed sort, to try and actively change more of the actions & attitudes that I've grown up with and change my ways of thinking. I did move 5 1/2 hours away for a reason. I know they can't/won't change, I need to better learn how not to get caught up in their struggles when I'm there. After all Vulcan is a nice place to visit, I just don't live there anymore.

Inspire Me Mondays 5

This red snail was going to be my original subject when I saw it. Wowzer! If you're not going to look like any one else do it in a big way. Then I realized the poor guy had been in the line of a spray can that some one had used to put marks on the ground. Rampaging vandals. I hope he survives his marking.

Then I decided nothing makes me feel better than the woods and even better if there is water. Water lilies are just gravy. They freeze their little bulbs off in the winter sending down their roots deep into the nice slimy mud and send up rafts to casually bob on the surface. If that isn't enough, the little explosions of color unfold to become fireworks in the reflected skies.

Reflections Weekend.

Unlike my friend Graciel, of Evenstar Art I find myself less interested in the clouds- not that I don't enjoy them, but more intrigued by their reflections. I guess how they look earth bound. Yin & Yang. I haven't reached up that high yet. I took photos on a recent trip to New Orleans- they were about barriers. I love having the thermometer of photos to see what and how I'm feeling and evolving. When I realized about reflections, I looked for even more on our little trips. Love those Monet paintings.

The top images are from Beaver Island State Park, the bottom images are from Reinstein Woods. Both little jaunts with my sister, Elise of Lucky Danger.

Inspire Me Mondays 4

I was wandering around the yard for something that inspires me. I wanted great thunderclouds with a nice thunder bolt or even just nice soothing rain but I was too late, it had just quit. As I was coming in the door there was a tiny feather. Ah ha. Flight, I dream of flying. Rather just long gliding hops and swooping in arcs. I wish I had that power. As you see I collect feathers when I find them. Sometimes they are messages, particularly when left right outside your door. You just have to remember your thoughts of the recent past and see how this fits in. A confirmation, an I was thinking of you..ect. You'll know. Maybe you don't have to be struck by lightning to get a message just the tickle of a feather.

I should pay attention to myself more often.

Last weekend I was making these.

I know, what are they?

Supports of a kind. I have a thing for ancient heads, torsos, whatever. You have to carve out the wooden base to cradle the object and make it more stable. I don't like to glue the pieces onto the base, then you can't pick them up and hold them and turn them around. It transforms a broken remnant back into a work of art. The supports were the important part of the weekend. I was feeling very pissy, pooky and out of sorts and in many ways unsupported. I was building for some fragments of clay the very thing I'm looking for. I took a few more days to even out but it helped to realize what I was doing and know I'm looking for more. I am on the right path, I do have friends that will help me. I need to set up more supports and goals for myself and turn myself back into a work of art.

Inspire me Monday 3

This little beauty was given last rites. Literally thrown in the trash and given to me by a friend. A customer had returned this- it's leaves as wrinkly as green elephants knees and seemingly no hope. And yet a year later this. My friend knows I have a particular brand of benign neglect that plants respond to. She can see beyond the immediate illusions and see the hidden potential. Look for it. In Things, In Friends, In Family, don't give up on them especially when they're counted out, or don't do things the way others expect. Harsh criticism won't do a thing. Try an I've been there and this worked for me. You can only speak from what you know. Or I don't know, but I'll be glad to make the journey with you. If you're one artist to another try a nudge in a different but related vein. Growing friends and family really isn't that hard, it's just a matter of caring and give and take. Why is love the easiest and most difficult thing to give?

Rainy day lilies

They do what they do, regardless of the weather. They increase every year, bindweed doen't seem to bother them. Orange, abundant and I had to have them when I moved here. I got the originals from Mom & Dad's.