things about me

Things about me.  

           1.  I am a mother and grandmother, and pretty much have loved the role.  I have loved the role and still feel very much for my girls.  I love to give my grandsons kisses.
           2. I am a wife.  And I have loved being married.  There are a bout 50 -60 days in my 51 years of marriage that I would have preferred not being married.  I  have loved the companionship.  

3. love to look at water.  Any water , even a fountain.

         4.  I am a cook.  Food has been a passion for 51  years, although now it is forced at times.  Now I am cooking from a limited number of cookbooks, trying to streamline the process. .  I have come to the point that leftovers are not so bad.  

           5. I always have a creative passion going besides food.  Many years it was knitting.  I went through that passion about 3 times in my life.  I started knitting at ten.

           6.  I am a blogger.  Not great, but I have stuck with it for six years.  I love people to look at it, but I realize that I am doing it for me.  Some times I like telling little stories of things that amuse me.  I blog about four days a week.  

   7.I have come to love photography.  I have taken snap shots for one reason or another, but I took a blogging class and realized that photos made all the difference. I  learned how to use my camera and it has been great since then.  I am not great    , but I have improved, and I think that others , if they do not know about the art of photography, they think I am great.  Currently I am doing Project life, but what I do not like about that is that the photos are only snapshots, I like to take a little time and at the least frame them.  I am not taking quality photos.  

         8.  I do not have many close friends, although I know a lot of people.  I am sort of an in-depth friend. I used to have friends like that, but after moving to Washington, it has been harder.  Everyone including me, is into their retired husbands, and my husband is a loner.  I do miss friends.  I will  say not having a lot of close friends does leave me time for my creative endeavors.  

         9. I go to church and have a small women's group which satisfies my feeling on bonding.  These women are willing to talk religion.  I do volunteer work at church.  

           I am a conservative in the American political system.  I worry a lot about how our country is headed and our culture and how it is falling apart.  

       11. I sailed to Hawaii in a sailboat from San Francisco.

       12.  For a short time I washed towels for the homeless shelter, but I gave that up as there were enough cognitive people that they could go to the laundromat.   

January 19, 2012

Just a little excercise in getting going in Photoshop again.  This is about adjustment layers.  

January 16, 2012

My creative life

When I was sixteen a friend of my parents took me on to give me painting lessons.  I do not think it was a long time, but I did love doing it and everyone said it was wonderful.   I think my daughter has the painting of Anne Hathway's  cottage.  I was doing college prep in High School. So I never took art classes, for one thing I thought all the people in art class were stupid and or not cool.

When I went to college I studied first Home Ec, and then Apparel  Merchandising.   There were always design classes or creative classes like clothes  design.  I thought at the time that I could be a clothes designer, but I was too interested in men and my soon to be husband.  In some ways college was wasted on me, and in other ways  I got a back ground for life long interests in other areas.

I left college and went to work at he University of California Berkeley, and then was only time I worked.  We, Micheal and I had three girls and that was my job.  But I was always creative.

I was subject to depression and anxiety.  I desperately needed creativity.  I tried many things including, sewing (I did a lot of that) for myself and my girls.  I always wanted to sell something and make a buck.  I thought my girls clothes were terrific and they, especially in the later years, did not think so.   I tried painting and did okay, some nice, but all the time I wondered where my next painting would come and I felt a fraud and a little of a wannabe.  I tried writing and got through a first draft of a short novel.  There I really felt a fraud and I did not know how to keep a "voice".  I went through many phase of knitting and I did some pretty nice sweaters, actually a few fabulous.  I did design children's sweater and tried to sell them.  I did not do well at that.  This included most work on a knitting machine.  Hand  knitting was slow, but it was always a good friend to return to.  I do not knit now because my finger gets out of joint.

Six years ago I started a blog thinking it would be the shortest blog in history.  But  it still live going through a life of its own of ups and downs  Sometimes I think of it as for my self and other times I mostly think of it for others.  I took Holly Beckers blogging class, and I happened the other night to find a list of those whose blogs I then.  There were few still blogging.  I added photos to my blog usually.But through her class I learned how valuable photos were and I started trying to improve my photography.  Once I started that I never looked back.  I threw myself into photography.  I have my IPhone, my SLR and for Christmas I got a very nice point and shoot for my purse.  This is where I am at the moment.  One of my goals for the year is to print more photos.

My health goes up and down and sideways.  I am not sure my goal is any longer to sell.  I think likely selling is a huge effort that likely I am not ready to put forth.  I am working on Project Life for the first time and I hope that it will promote my photography.

January 16, 2012

October 3, 2011,

This is a clip of a much larger photo to create a whole new composition.  It was cropped too far for my photo making it almost unfocused.  But there are a lot of photos within photos.   Likely I should take more off the top.  This week I am looking for a wall to photograph.

October 1, 2011/ Photos by others that I have liked.

I do not know who the top photo is by except the name is Corbin.  The woman Is by a tracey conwall.  I have just started two days ago the Art of Composition course with Tracey Clark.   This week we are to pick photos and and tell why we like them .  These are two of my three.  I love the woman photo.  She is in her eighties.  The top photo amuses me.

August 30/

Two new postcards.


I have purchased Lightroom because I have started taking photo in the RAW.  It is very hard to deal with them  as they all need to be converted to something else .dng or .jpeg.  It was on sale for $149.  50% off.  This should arrive today.   I was pleased that my Cursor friends enjoyed the photos.