This from Blogger - "known issues"....hmmmm......

We're investigating an issue which is preventing login and comment posting for some users, and hope to have a fix released shortly.

Thanks for your patience in the meantime. — latest update on Tuesday, May 24, 2011

What is up with Blogger???

It appears that I can only leave comments from my home computer - what's up with that? Blogger won't let me sign on from my work computer (during lunch hour!!) or from my ipad. I don't get it...I know KatieJane is having a similar issue - how about anyone else? Any hints as to how to solve the problem???? Does anyone at Blogger give a rat's a**?

Animal Wednesday - a new tenant

In the Yew Tree by our side door - a cardinal couple has taken up residence. They both go hysterical when we open the door, so I had to sneak around to be able to take pictures. Even with a stealthy approach, whoever was on the nest - and I think it was the male - flew away with a huge flutter.

Here is a picture of a parent on the nest - look at that red.


I got a picture of the nest when he/she had flown away. Pulled back a branch and there it was, cleverly disguised from my eyes. Then I held the camera up and tried to get a picture inside of what I assumed would be eggs. Look at what I found - amazing!!



The male and female were flying around squawking like crazy by this point. I got a picture of the female, but couldn't get the male - he was flying around like a bombadier.



That's it for today. I am having computer problems right now, I don't have a cursor when trying to post....haven't been able to leave comments sometimes....and now the computer has lost the slideshow that I have as a screen saver. Oh well.....have a Happy Animal Wednesday!

Rock Pearls

I saw an image in a magazine about an underground cave that had "Rock Pearls" formed from dripping calcite or something like that. I loved the image and have been drawing variations of it for days - using it to learn about color and shading. Here is a watercolor work in progress.....I'll probably do more before I stop obsessing about Rock Pearls.

You can embiggen if you click on it

Animal Wednesday - seen in NYC

All day long I've been feeling like something was missing, that I'd should have done something today but for the life of me I couldn't figure out what I should have been doing on a Thursday. Well...duh! it's Wednesday silly - so better late than never and here is something odd for Animal Wednesday....

I saw this in a New York City subway station - can you believe it? Isn't it amazing? It was hidden and dark and dirty (there were two of them or more) and I would have loved to have rescued it. I found that alot of the subway stations were decorated with wonderful tile work, and this one in particular represented the beaver pelts that made Jacob Astor rich.

The things you can see in New York - amazing.

Happy Very Late Animal Wednesday

What else....bowls!

I must admit to still be obsessed with making bowls. Little bowls this time and one slightly bigger one - shown below (which in person is a lovely purple color, but looks a bit washed out here) Very dinosaur egg this one.
The ones below are thinner than my usual ones - and the back ones are really redder - like ripe apples. The smaller one has a yellow inside, then painted with gold interference paint and in person it looks luscious, the bigger one is painted gold inside. The one in the front is bluer, with gold interference paint over a light blue paint inside.

More shots below of the same ones - different poses.



I'm sure hoping that there are people at YART who like bowls. KJ - can you please rename the event "Yarbowls"?

It's been raining here for two days - cold and rainy and nasty after a week in Florida. I've got the heat on, and am about to go an collapse in front of a roaring (gas) fireplace.

And nap.....

A Week Later

I really haven't posted much in a week - except for a little Animal Wednesday - which I set up in advance. It's been a busy but productive week for us - we got much accomplished in Florida - both in chores and emotionally. I actually relaxed - and felt the tension draining out of me for a day or so, and it was a healthy healing feeling.

I think we've all noticed that there is less blog posting going on as spring emerges this year, and to me - it's all part of the cycle. Winter here in the Northeast was impressive and overwhelming weather wise, and the onset of spring has been like a release from a winter cave. I spent the morning yesterday gardening - something that I really haven't done in many years - I mean the intense, digging type of gardening that you do when you have neglected your garden for too long. (ah - metaphors). And it felt good to dig out a plant that had metastasized to all parts of my front garden, and to open the doors to the little shed and air it out. And due to all of this digging and changing and moving and healing - I haven't worried about posting, or tweeting or facebooking or whatever. (Actually, I don't tweet). I treat my blog as a place to share art, thoughts, ideas, adventures - and not as a mandatory "I have to update my blog" place. There are weeks when I post everyday - just cause it's the right thing to do that week. There are weeks when I don't post at all. It's all good.

I have noticed that some people prefer facebook, and while I do check out FB occasionally, I don't find it a good venue for me. Maybe as a quick update - as in "traveling to east nowhere this weekend - see ya" - I like that and find it good. But for posting a real meaty post - nahh - it's not the place.

So what's the point of all this? I guess it's just my reaction to seeing people apologize for not reading the blogs, or not commenting, or just being apologetic in general about their blogging habits. I don't think it's necessary to apologize - just go with the flow of the moment. Post or not - just let everyone who cares about you know that you're OK. I love blogging, I love my blog friends (in person and not in person). I love the comments you all leave, I love knowing that people don't leave comments and just lurk. I love reading other's posts and sometimes commenting, sometimes not. This venue has been - for me - an incredible tool to learn and grow and despite blogger's recent problems - mostly fairly easy.

So to sum it all up - I'm still blogging. See ya when I read ya.

LOVE, Mim

Six Word Saturday

I am off to Florida today.

Taking mom out to a fancy brunch, doing chores in MIL's apartment (still chock full of furniture) - hopefully some relaxing.

have a lovely week all....

Animal Wednesday - videos and more

This made me LAUGH

I hope you can all see it - what a good giggle!!

A Dog Story:

Background - I'm subtly working on DH for another dog. Haven't made much headway but I'm still working on it. I think he's thawing out a tiny bit on the idea - at least that was what I felt - I was encouraged!

We got to my mom's house on Sat night and met Scruffy (Sir Scrufulos - my name for the funny little guy) - and he is a well behaved sweet dog. My cousin came over with her puppy - a 9 month old poodle cross - cute also but puppy like. The puppy, Sammy, was very active and excited to be around all new people and another dog. He charged around the house, ate Scruffy's food and in general acted like a pup. The, in true dog fashion, he felt sick from all the food and excitement, so he got up....walked over to where my DH was making a sandwich.....scrunched down next to him and threw up at his feet.

What an offering. Right to the person in the house that is not a true dog fan.

DH was kinda yuck about the whole thing. Thank goodness he missed the part where Sammy pooped at the front door, on the lovely clean wood floor.

Here is Scruffy - really kinda cute and pretty smart....

grrr - I am posting this from a PC and it won't let me put my mr linky in here - grrrr. And if there are spacing problems - blame the PC again - I'm getting MAC addicted.

have a happy Animal Wednesday!!!

Animal Wednesday - Birds on the River

A few weekends ago we did a Sunday River kayak and I took my bigger camera - which I really don't know how to use well yet. I wanted it because it zooms in much further than my little point and shoot but wow - is it ever hard to focus on a bird, while in a rocking kayak. I have more out of focus pictures than you could believe.

But I did get a few that were worthwhile - wish there had been blue skies but the grey day made for a softer float down then river - and a tough paddle back!

I caught this guy singing (or yelling - who knows what they are saying)

I think this is a grackle - with iridescent colors - see it if enlarges - he's got gorgeous colors on him.


I followed this poor Heron around from place to place. Everytime I got close, he'd fly away. Finally I got some shots using the zoom.


Have a Happy Animal Wednesday - hope the weather if fine where you are. We've had a few days of just gorgeous weather - and today it will rain...which is just fine.

Boston Comic Con - woohoo!!

Yesterday - on a beautiful sunny morning - I dragged my DH into Boston so that we could go to a Comic Convention. I was not so excited about going as I've heard that it was quite a geek convention, and I am NOT a geek (right?...right???).

But I wanted to see what it was all about and get a feel for what people are doing. Plus it was fun to drive into the city, park downtown and walk around on the fancy streets.

$20.00 for each of us to get in, and we immediately started passing grown men and women dressed as Darth Vader, and Spiderman, Xena and Wonder-Woman. And let me tell you - some of these people should NOT have been wearing spandex. Nope...not a good look for a paunchy middle aged comic lunatic. But I started feeling the fun also, and that was good.

As you might know - I took a comic class about 1 year ago and loved it. And I've been working on getting Miss Em into comic book format all year, redrawing all the individual stories that I have and putting them onto the paper that they use for comics. I have about 39 pages finished, with more in my head. But for some reason, that's where they've stayed - in my head. I've been feeling constricted by the format and constricted by the do's and don't of traditional comic layout and production. I've stopped drawing ! I was with a friend the other day who's in the midst of writing a children's book and we talked alot about format, and breaking out of the mold. And I've been thinking about how to move forward with this project, as I miss my little Miss Em -

Anyway - walking around that convention center - meeting and talking to people got me excited again. And, all of the worry about the do's and don'ts fell away. I realized that the tried and true methods of comic book production are for mass production, Superman and all that. I have absolutely no interest in doing a daily Miss Em comic strip - or worrying about production, or book series. I met a few interesting women who do comics on the side and have day jobs - and their comics are self published and fun. Colorful, and no superhero's to be seen. I met a writer from New York who's working on a comic series with a buddy that he met in camp 30 years ago. Lot's of people telling their life stories in comics. There is a group in Boston that gets together and does critique and discussion - I'm going to try to meet up with them. I want to get more feedback on different formats - and might be asking for volunteers from my loyal reading crowd (that means you!) to look at two different formats and give me feedback.

All in all it was a good day. I feel energized about organizing my work and getting something going again - which is what I was hoping for.

So, I hope it's the end of the stress bowls for awhile... but I thought I'd show you the latest two little ones, aren't they cute? I like the deep colors, but like the shape of the other little one better. I might keep trying just a little bit.....



It's a gorgeous day again here - and I'm thinking bicycles.....