What I'm Working On

At any given moment, I have tons of UFOs (UnFinished Objects), but really -- doesn't every creative person? I'm not sure what it is, but I have a dreadful habit of bouncing between projects. Inspiration strikes, and I drop one thing to start another.

This summer has been kind of a rough one. I had some health issues that put me in the hospital after ER visits. My daughter didn't have summer school this year, so we've been sort of on top of each other. Stress levels (which may have contributed to the health concerns) have been pretty high, and to make things worse, my anticipated summer trip to Ontario disintegrated, in part due to those same health issues.

But what, you might ask, does that have to do with projects and UFOs? Well, earlier this month during a visit to my parents' home while Dad's sis was up, we got to talking about family history. When I got back home, I dug out a CD of scanned genealogy notes, sent to me by someone who's probably a cousin somewhere. I'd printed out maybe a quarter of them, and I finished (yay!) that, and comb-bound them. Once that was done, I started inputting that info into my genealogy program (Reunion), in a new family file, since I'm not sure where all these people connect. As I'm working on all this data entry, some familiar places keep popping up; these Loyalist cousins (at least, I think they're cousins...) were settled near where my friends live in Ontario! And there's a museum with researchers who know the line. So now my desire to get back to Canada is even stronger, since now there may be some research links there, and I might be able to tie myself to the original family that emigrated from Germany, pre-Revolution! But that's not creative, you may say, and I suppose you'd be right. "Creative" research is not the sort you should engage in. So even if it's not a creative endeavor, it IS a work-in-progress, so I mention it here.

Another semi-(un)creative project is my selective catalog of superheroines and villainesses; I've made it to the Rs. For someone who hates data entry, I sure have a bunch of it going on. Anyway, the point of that started out to be a more inclusive list of female action figures than the best one that existed online previously. The writer of that list stopped updating it (life goes on) and I thought I'd pick up the slack. But I went a step further and included the good and bad girls of note, regardless of whether they have an action figure. Why? Because I'm insane, clearly...

I still haven't finished my Flame Jacket, and all that needs doing to it is putting on the sequin appliqués. It's been sitting on Mathilda in the basement for months... *sigh* And if I'm going up to Ontario this fall, I might actually want a jacket. Better move this one to the top of the To-Do list.

I did finish one of the skirts, and am happy with how it turned out. I started working on a second, but stalled on that one. Hemming the dress is probably the easiest thing to finish, and if I hurry up and do it, I'll be able to wear it this summer. (Heaven knows it's been too bloody hot for long dresses!) I mostly finished one of the shrugs, I just need to get the right color of ribbon for the tie. (And that's another thing that's been sitting for ages, and would be so easy to finish!)

I sort of finished the t-shirt necklace, but I'm not sure if I'm satisfied with it, so it may not be finished. It's set to the side, while I consider.

I have a wall quilt planned and material purchased for the foyer. I have decided how I want to do the wall quilt with the Hawaiian fabric I bought on Maui (5 years ago...). And I want to make a wall quilt using material from my wedding dress and the bridesmaids dresses (Mom made them, so I have scrap material from those, will not be cutting up my dress).

I want to finish redoing my closets, but I need to consider the second space carefully, since I learned things on the first space. This is a more back-burner project, although fall is a good time to be working in the garage.

I've sort of taken the year off after the gallery where Shattered Photos pieces were sold closed. I'm trying to regroup, and haven't been very diligent about picking myself up from that and moving on.

I need to do a revised edition of my book, and that's sort of stalled, too. Really, all that needs revision is one (important) chapter, but I'm having trouble getting started. I'd also like to do a new/revised family cookbook, since so many children have gotten married and started their own families since I did the first one 12 years ago. Those two things go hand-in-hand, or would, if I could jump-start the process.

Plus there's various other small things, ideas, planned projects, etc. I have materials to make various things with, and haven't gotten started... Not to mention the basement, which is one huge UFO -- have the paint and the plan, need to finish reorganizing the space (still not completely unpacked from the move 2 years ago).

I'm exhausted thinking about all this. Maybe I'll go take a nap...

Slugfest Continues

Turns out Canada is too laid-back a place to get camera crazy. :) I did take pictures, of course, but my camera was not glued to my face. So I took some photos, laughed with excellent company, and was lazy for a week. It was fab.

One of the wineries visited, with truly amazing fruit wines.

Culture in Toronto (really sorry I was going to miss out on that, I left the weekend this was to take place).

Niagara Falls, Ontario

Part of the canal system, view off the bridge, near Welland.

Sunset in Port Dalhousie

Back from Vacation

After a week in sunny, breezy southern California, I'm back in humid, hot Illinois. *bleh* I went loaded down with memory cards for my cameras (Canon PowerShot A540, Canon Digital Rebel XTi), but never had to switch out from either one. My daughter, who'd never flown before or been to California, is not the world's most patient child, and does not care to stand around while Mommy frames a shot.

Our last night in Oceanside, we ate at Ruby's Diner, which has a fabulous location out on the end of a pier. Like an idiot, I forgot to grab my camera, but my brother offered to drive me back to the condo so I could get it and take me back out so I could shoot the sunset. The clouds had been uncooperative the whole time we were there, obscuring the sunset at the point where the sun hit the water... I was sure I'd get it this time. Wrong! My sis-in-law says the best sunsets are in January.

So my brother and I hung out on the pier after the disappointing sunset, and I shot surfers. I had to use ISO 800 for most of them, so the pictures are grainy as hell, and more than a little blurry because of the movement of the water and the men, plus the lighting was a little strange from the sodium lights on the pier and the disappearing sun (while I had it), making the water look a little pinkish on the foam. I ran a cooling photo filter over it to correct some of the color. Far from perfect, but you can definitely see that, yes, that is a surfer.


These guys were surfing right next to the pier, so I had an excellent vantage point, even if the light was not my friend. If I hadn't forgotten my bloody camera in the first place, I would have had the light while we walked to the end of the pier for dinner. (Doh!)

This shot was taken the night before, from the walkway of the building we were staying in. I shot it from the 3rd floor, and it was well past sunset, so I was using a long exposure time. You can really see the peach-tinged glow from the lights on the pier. That's the diner out at the end (right side), and my brother and I were watching the surfers from the near (north) side, about a third of the way down the pier.

The palms you see are growing along the beach where we spent some time. The road behind it is called simply "The Strand." The places up and down The Strand are rental properties, and some of them are quite tiny, like this little row of stucco cottages.

These are practically doll's houses. One room, essentially, with a loft for sleeping. You can see in them especially well at night, when everyone is out on the front porch or sidewalk, talking with neighbors, and they have their front windows uncovered and front doors open to the ocean breeze. There's another row of them behind these, staggered so that the space between the front row becomes the ocean view of the ones behind. The front row is literally about 10 yards (9 meters) from the beach. Front porch, sidewalk, The Strand (one lane), sidewalk, beach. If it looks a little grey, it is grey. This was what every morning looked like, until the sun was up high enough to burn off the haze from the ocean. Once the haze is gone, the beach looks more like this:

The flag with the black circle on a yellow field is a "blackball" - and it means no surfing allowed. It's a safety thing; surfers can be dangerous to swimmers and boogie boarders. Surfers resent it hugely.

The beach may look strangely empty, even if the photo was taken on a Tuesday. It's about 5pm (PDT); the tourists have largely left to go have dinner. I found it very interesting that people will set up their umbrellas, pavilion tents, coolers, blankets, etc, etc... starting around 7 in the morning, to stake out their spot on the beach, stay all day, but leave before sunset! It's the west coast, this is where the sun sets on the (mainland) US! 'Course, maybe they already know what my sis-in-law does: this is the wrong time of year for spectacular sunsets...