Country Roads Take Me Home...

...or to work.



I love living on a road where everyone waves as you drive by on your way to work. It's one of the first things i learned when i moved to this part of North Central WV. I recently visited my hometown. We'll call hometown "Unnamed In Southwestern PA". Out of habit I started waving at people as i drove by. After a number of weird looks, I duct taped my hand to the steering wheel to make it stay down. I guess people up there didn't realize the whole hand could raise up. They're just used to using the one digit.

Back to work. This was me...



Not anymore.

Late Summer Eye Candy

...in honor of those of you going back to work/school. I hope these will brighten your day...

I had so much fun taking these pictures in my backyard. it was a gorgeous day. and i had some beautiful models, lol!

I think i have more pictures of emmy than bibi because emmy is a ham. and i'm still editing the pictures of bibi. she had a big chunk of green tooth paste in her hair. go figure.

Happy late summer everybody!

I quit my meds. and other useless stuff.

So i weaned myself off of zoloft. that is , i quit taking it cold turkey. Why take a half of a half of a pill to wean off; that sounded pretty useless. So i just stopped taking them.

i cannot believe the mood swings in this household from not taking a half of a half of a pill. My moods were pretty bad too.

I bought my first bottle of wine in 3 months. I figure it's just from the thought of going back to work. Maybe the mood swings have something to do with it, but i doubt it. it's not me, it's them. It always was.

I have too much stuff to do for summer to be over; doesn't it know that yet?? like clean my house. that was big on my list of things to do this summer. yeah when summer break comes, i'm going to clean my house. yeah.

...putting clean the house on the list for next summer.

I did get a lot done this summer, and i got to visit many new blogs! I made a new template. I discovered i could sell my photos through micro stock photography. micro stock = micro payment, but still. think of all the photos i can tag and label during school meetings.

i've always wanted something constructive to do during meetings.

I also (finally) finished the second of the "easiest quilts to make, ever". I made them out of my girls old flannel baby blankets. Just piece together, find a lining (i used an old bed sheet), find a backing (i used another old flannel bed sheet) and connect (with yarn every 6 in, or with a fancy stitch on the sewing machine).

Pictorial History of said blanket, not necessarily in order because i'm drinking wine.
you get the idea....

I discovered i love taking pictures more and more. And I'm working on being able to sell them through a particular website. (some website. whichever will take me.)I want to save up for a nicer camera with interchangeable lenses and manual adjustments.

Also i finally made a flower garden that i'm proud of .

Yeah, it's been good. now, i can finally relax. I'm going back to work.

Where I may, or may not have a room. again. due to construction. or constriction. of someone's brain. cause they're so stupid.

do you know our school is missing from the school board's map? the map hangs in their building. and we're not on it. hey, at least i know that i'm not the only person no one wants to claim. Who, her? she just shows up here everyday. no one hired her.

What? that school? they just showed up one day and started teaching kids. no one invited them to join along.

Whatever.

Tomorrow I'll post some sweet end of summer eye candy in honor of going back to work/school. I promise.

xx oo

Tubby Violated My Child's Dinosaur!

Two scenes that cracked me up this evening...

1. Tubby (my 'super sized' cat) sitting dangerously close to a piece of string and a toy dinosaur looking extremely guilty. (tubby looked guilty. the dinosaur just looked violated.) Tubby has a dinosaur fetish lately. I've caught her sleeping with a plastic dinosaur the other night. I just wonder if she needs cat therapy...
   
2. My two stacked up oversized containers of chai tea in my tea cupboard. Oversized because i'm too cheap to go to a real coffee shop and buy the real stuff. Stacked up because i'm afraid of running out. because. i'm addicted. It's so hot outside, so i sit inside in air conditioning so i can drink my hot chai tea. hot. because. i'm addicted.
   
3. (i can't count) myself, drinking chai tea. it finally dropped to 86 out there. I think i'll go outside.

I've been tossing around a post about the easy quilt i made. but quilts aren't sexy. and i'm all about sexy here. and fat cats. and my stupid addictions.

speaking of addictions. i've decided. i'm going to save up to buy the Canon Rebel xitsblah, blah, blah whatever it's called. it's a lower price but i can still buy extra lenses and change them out. fun and i can't wait. i can't wait to play around with it and see what pictures i can take. i'm also considering selling prints of my photos. thoughts anyone?

friday foto shoot

Man, i've got issues. can you help me? i have a photo fetish. i like taking pictures. of myself. my mac says...beep beep beep, flash!

For real though, I actually was super excited that after mumble mumble years, i figured out how to fix my hair smooth curly. i could fix it curly before, but the front never looked right. and i used gel. lots. yuck.

so, here's my tip, disguised in voyeurism cause i've got issues:

finger twist the wave! doh!

i used leave in conditioner, finger twisted 3-5 strands around my face and dabbed/secured just those pieces with gel. i also used the tiniest bit of gel on the ends of my hair. i used the diffuser on my blowdryer until it was mostly dry and presto!

when it's dry, scrunch a little with your hands to fluff it.

i'm letting my hair grow out so i can enjoy my curls.

My mother in law gave me this cup. We'll call the girl on the cup my "before" photo.

My piano. it's out of tune. it's so bad, i'm too ashamed to have someone tune it. and they'd say, "and you teach what??" i'll tell them i'm an art teacher...

My Mona Lisa Look. Divine Infinite Patience. I'm practicing for this school year.

Divine Infinite Patience II (notice the kids)

yeah...

I think we need a change of pace...

My best Renee Zwelliger* expression.
*(or however you spell it...)

Actually the first photo i took. see how my hair's a bit "crunchier". (and see how there's more of it prior to pulling it out...)

Really, where would i be without my faithful audience. Hello? Hello??
.....
I'm all alone, just me, myself, and my pictures...

But, wait! There's more!
yeah, ok. maybe next time...
i do have more pictures. no, seriously. i do.

Garden Eye Candy

I'm posting these just because...

...because my garden is in bloom...

...because we worked so hard on it in the rainy spring...

...because i wanted to play with my camera settings...

...because i wanted to see more pictures on my blog...

...because i'm weird...

...because i can...

...because...i'm going to shut up now...

.....

.....


.....

...are you still there?...

I love you summer. xxx ooo.

how to add the d@m comment form back to my new template

Apologies to anyone who tried to comment on my blog yesterday. The new template i was so proud of did not include that nifty comment form in it's html. Oh, it would go to the pop up box, or the comments on the second page, but i had fallen in love with the "comment form", and i had to have the "comment form", i needed the comment form on my blog, dagnabit!

So I stumbled on the tutorial here and unfortunately got sucked into scanning html code at bedtime. surely prison cannot be worse than reading html code when you are tired. I should have waited till this morning, but i'm stubborn. and stupid. and i missed out snuggling with my littlest one who asked mom are you ok?? and i said yes, i had told her i was just going to shut the computer off....sucked in.

Anyway I figured it out. this morning. after i got the bright idea to use my find button (in "edit" in Foxfire) to highlight "comment" and finally found the illusive code. in under 10 minutes. i'm the next einstein.

So, if you are as frustrated as i and switched templates only to find that you lost your "comment form", HERE is the tutorial for adding it back in. Works for just about any template in blogger. (at least, that's what the guy says).

Picture of my screen, the html in pink is what i was looking for... (click on to see, life is not working for me today)


The Html in green is the code i had to add in. I copied and pasted from the tutorial page.





And make sure you hit save, not preview. Preview didn't show my comment form. Well, save didn't either, but at least i could get on my site for real and check it out. and it worked!

Have fun and good luck!

new template??

So i learned how to use a different template here, and downloaded my template here, and i like it. i'm sure there's more i can do with it, but i'm happy for now.

work looms large.

but a paycheck is good. money means i start a "new camera fund". hmm, which one should i get, canon, nikon?? a fancy point and shoot, or one were i can switch lenses and do other cool, fancy stuff. cool fancy stuff that i don't know how to do now.

in other news, i garden.
i got mad at my non blooming cosmos.
i yanked it out.

i shouldn't garden when i feel rash. or i should just stick with digging holes. digging holes is good.

Waiting...

Waiting for Daddy to cross the finish line at the Med Express Triathlon in WV.
He did the "iron man" distance.
I don't know the exact distances on that.
I do know he was out for 6 hours.
And it was hot.
Real hot.

Yea Daddy!
He came in 5th in his age group.
It's only his second "iron man".
We're so proud of him.