Phone Camera Identity Crisis

Most days, I have to say, my most convenient photography apparatus is my phone camera.  The accessibility of it is hard to beat, and for the most part, it takes pretty decent pictures.  Today, after taking plenty of random pictures and reviewing them, I came to the conclusion that my phone camera reminds me of a 35mm point-n-shoot.  There's no zoom capabilities, it focuses on whatever it wants to, and the color is pretty washed out.  It's great if you're going for those desired effects, but less so if you're wanting to document detail, color, or anything in low[er] lighting. 

Luckily for me though, I'm enjoying ::fudging:: the pictures and messing with the balance, contrast, and color saturation....

And so...

Shadow...

... and reflection

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Oh, and here is a reference point for the size of the squash plant.  My flip flops are down in the left corner of the picture.  The leaves are at least double the size of the shoes, and it's almost as tall as me.  :)  Yesterday, the squash plants were pretty sad.  It looked as if an animal had climbed into the plant, made a nice little nest in the dirt,and slept there for a few hours.  The majority of the leaves were sad-like and droopy.  Today, they are much happier!  And we've about 5 baby squash that should be ready in a few days.  Honestly, I think the plants are happier when I water them at night than in the morning, which is great, because there's hardly ever enough time for me to do anything extra in the morning (and that's on my days off).  But anywho, garden world is doing great! 

This picture makes me smile!

Writing Utensils as Artistic Aspirations

In my efforts to find a close writing utensil, I found myself in the closet looking through my old art kits that I hadn't yet explored to their fullest extent.  A Chinese painting kit, watercolor kit, and a cartooning kit amongst the others.  Ah yes!  I reached for the cartooning kit, what with it's 12 ::fancy:: colored pencils, and ::official:: cartooning pen, surely I would find an utensil to my liking...

I obviously have major high hopes in the progression of my artistic capabilities.  Master watercolorist, Chinese painter, and (but-of-course) comic book illustrator!  A small list, yes, but a list nonetheless.  And the thing is, I even have a book to illustrate, and maybe someday, it will be illustrated, and then I can use a book publishing website like blurb.com to put it all together, and put it on our coffee table and revel in our combined awesomeness.  Yes, that is the end-result-goal!

For now though, I will take pictures of the colored pencils (that will one day make masterpieces) and amuse in the fact that they are serving their own distinct purpose.  And that cannot be denied.

In other news, I harvested my first squash today!  It was hiding in the back of the plants until I discovered it almost fully grown a few days ago, and today, I decided that it was ready!  And so, I picked it, documented it, chopped it, and put it in our salad.  And it was lovely!  Yay for homegrown veggies!  OH, and we have teeny red peppers (well at least the tag said they are going to be red) growing!  Tres exciting!!  They're so cute!!

First Teeny Summer Storm

We haven't had any rain for days.  Highs in the 90s, high humidity, and very little wind.  It's been a harrowing peek into what summer will be like (but don't we always say that around this time off year?).  And today was no different.  The only form of relief was being out on the back porch where there are more trees to offer shade, and comfy chairs to sit in.

So when we heard that there was a small storm brewing to the north, and the "lightly cloudy" clouds started rolling in, our "no rain" experience told us that the storm would blow by, the clouds were simply here for the moment, and our dinner 'a fresco would hardly be disturbed.  And we were mostly right, up until the point where the hurricane-grade winds came in, and the tiny little drops of mist became d.r.o.p.s. of rain.  There we were, rushing in from the impending doom of a storm, dodging (literally dodging) falling pinecones, and gathering everything up in one giant swoop.  I, for one, gasped.  This was rather unexpected, and I, rather unexpectedly, was pleasantly surprised. 

And even if it only lasted for a few minutes, and even if the deck where we had rushed in from earlier is now almost completely dry, this little afternoon storm, I believe, really is a very good example of what our summer is going to be like, and for that, I am glad.

Said falling pinecone.  It was aiming right for us...

Marker Dots

So you know that whole story about "if you give a mouse a cookie...", well...

If you give a [Nancy] a marker, she'll need to make some spots.
And if she makes some spots, she'll want to wash her hands.
And in order to wash her hands, she'll need to find a sink.
And if she goes looking for a sink, she might get distracted.
And if she gets distracted, she might find another marker.
And if she finds another marker, she might makes some more spots.
And well, you know what happens next...

Dots abound!

Papparazzi'd Frog

The poor thing jumped right back into the bushes moments after I took the picture...

I'm sure he was just being shy though.  ;)

Nothingness

No matter what, she always ended her day looking out the window.
The ::nothingness:: always stared right back, daring her to look deeper, asking her to guess what was on the other side, and creating fantasies and nightmares to fill her dreams.  It let her think, reflect, and process the day, and those to come.  It was the perfect blank canvas.  The nothingness was magical.  It was this completely void space that, when lit, was filled with trees and air and bugs.  Now, it was only black.  And there it was… being nothing, and yet encompassing so much of what she was.

How much of what she saw in that window did she see in herself? 
Was it the reflection?  The lack of reflection?  The bugs searching for the light bulb that they would never attain?  The cats trying to get the bugs that they too would never attain? 

When she looked out into the nothingness, what was she expecting to see?

You know, she would never tell you this, but she used to be afraid of the nothingness.  She hated the sensation of looking into a void… knowing that at any moment, something could pop out and into the light.  (Blame it on the scary movies…)  And if you added a flashlight into the mix, it made the situation even worse.  Not only are you staring into the void, but you are highlighting different points of the void in hopes of finding something – something that will likely pop out at you and into the light at any second.

But now, as she faces the void – the darkness – the complete nothingness, it’s not so scary.  It’s unclear what happened, but the void isn’t something where bad things lie, but may rather just be a place where the light is absent for a second.  Everything ::may:: still be there, and when the light hits it, you can rest assured that it is.

Progress

Before

Current

Check out the progress!  Woot!  I think the most impressive is the squash - the size of the leaves is impressive.  Oh, and the cucumber of course, because today, we had our first harvest!  A real live homegrown cucumber... normal size, girth, color, and it was tasty!

It made the perfect accoutrement to our second cookout of the week.

Perfect!  :)