Halloween totem

that's what Cheese calls this

pumpkin patch

This place is a fruit orchard. It is great when you want to go out into an orchard and pick your own apples, peaches, cherries, or raspberries. But when it comes to pumpkins, well, not so good, we got to the pumpkin patch part of it and I was so disappointed, it was just a field, grass with pumpkins placed on it! There was no tripping over vines, not picking one out, then using might and skill to release it. There were just rows of really big (=$$$$) pumpkins. I felt like I might as well have just gone to the grocery store, and that would have been much cheaper. I was further bummed because my camera batteries were depleted. So I have no shots of the strange wooden cow, you could "milk" and goodness knows what came out into a bucket. And no shots of the giant slide made with what looked like plastic industrial tubing. (Cheese refused to go down this, saying "Do you know how many people's butts have touched that thing, smashing down into it at high speeds.) (no it wasn't a question it was a declaration).

All and all we had a good time.

As you can see, we haven't carved the pumpkins. Emotionally/mentally, I still think it is September. I am surprised Cheese has shown no interest in carving his, because we have a family tradition, where you carve your pumpkin, then on Halloween night, the great pumpkin will come and leave you a present inside it. (no jack-o-lantern = no gift)

Oh! Deer

blurry, but dry deer.

wet pebbles

wet rocks

It is really a bit after 10 PM. Spent night typing in, done with the last of the major notebooks. Just some pages from my little purse notebook ( I have no idea how many pages), and I think I jotted down some notes in end of another notebook.
I walk with the "Irish girl" tomorrow, then I have to finish all my typing in. I feel fairly confident, that I will be able to do it.
I need Wednesday for the boards. Actually if I get far enough, I should really start the boards tomorrow. The boards= putting all my notes in order as they relate to the story. Because my notebooks go back and forth through time, not in order of when things happen in story, thus my typed up notes also have no chronological order, be it general story, or fact notes. So I have to go through them and cut them out, then glue stick them onto boards, which I then can put in order, with all the other boards I have for this story. I consider this to be like a plot outline. That should be done by November 1st, if I am to start the draft on day 1. Which I am to do, since that is the big bad, scary bad, I have been hiding from.

Almost 11pm still not off to bed, I am so not relaxed, I thought doing the pages would help, it didn't. I just counted the pages in the little purse notebook, I thought that might help me, give me a mental grasp on planning Tuesday. 30 pages, yeah, that isn't making me feel any better. It will turn out to be a lot less computer pages, but still it will be fun trying to read the little words, scrawled across all those penned pages tomorrow.

I guess I will print out today's stuff. Why am I still sitting here? I am so tired. 6am is getting closer by the second.
I know I sound all kinds of grumpy, I have had too much chocolate, which only makes me happy while I am eating it, then turns my mood dark.

more blurry birdie

and that concludes the bird photos (for a while)
which means, if you stop by tomorrow, you could very well be looking at wet rocks.

A Cheesy Taffy Sunday

What are we doing? Painting lego hair of course.
Cheese wants it pink. I have no idea why. He tried to do it with magic markers, but they didn't have enough magic in them. (it came right off). So we got out the acrylics, mixed the color he wanted, bubble gum, it is drying right now, I am painting it on in layers. Cheese was too nervous to paint it on himself. (I have to say he goes a bit all out, building a stand and everything solely for this purpose.)
Now he has come down with some other Lego painting plans for me, I say I need more detail

so he shows me this. I say "We are making this guy?" He says "No!"

This is who we were making Sakura (from Naruto), as I expected. She is drying, she'll get her arms.

It turned out okay, not great, my acrylics are old, maybe gesso would have made it smoother.
It's too bad oil paints, my preferred medium, would have just slid off this plastic.

After I thought I was done with her, I asked if I needed to do anything else, and he showed me a lego magazine picture of a queen, said I needed to add her detailing. Her outfit detailing didn't look right for a ninja so I was confused. "no, not that detailing, those" said Cheese, pointing to Lego curved lines that suggested breasts. "You want me to give her those! I don't even know how to go about giving a lego breasts!" said I. "Come on, just try" pleaded Cheese. So I did. Then he wanted lines on the sides to make her look skinnier. Then he said my lines needed to go "Up, up, up! Not down". I had no idea what he meant so we got out pencil and paper, and he drew perky breast lines. Apparently I hadn't made the breasts high and perky enough for him. So I kept working on that till he thought they were good. Then he said I was missing a line, "You know the center, it doesn't look right". It took me forever to work out that he meant cleavage. "Cleavage! You want cleavage!" My 11yr old wants his lego figure to have cleavage and he is asking his dear old mom to paint some on for him. (I couldn't believe it.) But I tried. He said it looked like chest hair, and laughed. I tired again. He was most impressed and pleased, saying they turned out bigger than he had expected.
Is my typing in, done for the day? No. I have spent my time painting..um..er..stuff on legos.
Was this a good use of my time? Sort of. Back when I was first painting the red ninja robe on, my son said "We are lucky to have you." I said "You mean the computer?". He said "Is the computer painting the Legos?". He meant me! ME! Nicest thing the child has ever said to me. To actually admit to me that he thinks I am good for something, it is a miracle I tell you.
And this is how Cheese spent his time, while I did the legos. He made a lego character of me.

(from site reasonablyclever.com)
I said to him "Can't you put the video camera back in her hand? I liked that." He laughed "Mom, that was a gun." Oh.
I did ask him to take those breasts away, but then I looked like a guy in his undershirt, so I said he could put them back.
by the bye,
Sakura has her arms now, two katana swords, and is safely behind clear plastic walls.

Cheese showing me Princess Leia in her hot tub (should I be concerned?)

Trick or treat?

Bit of both really. It rained constantly with fits of downpour.
Most places postponed trick or treating but not our county.
So it was a really dark wet night, and this is the best I could do for photos. Oh and my digital camera and I are fighting, after only two weeks together, I had such hopes for a blissful romance, but now we can't even get along well enough to get anything done. So it is back (for now) to my blurrier companion video, who is always agreeable. He can't always do it well, but he tries to do as I ask.

This pic makes me think of The Land of the Lost, Slee-stacks (s?).

if this was clearer you would see the rain drops sliding down the front, and slipping into the carved out parts

carriage ride anyone?

blow up building to walk through

bat tree lights

the view as I walked down the street

I didn't alter this, I dont know why the rain in the road is reflecting red

bit tricky walking through the slooshy grass, and streets flowing with water, adjusting my umbrella to get a shot, this inspired Cheese to ask "Do you have to take pictures of everything?........You do don't you?"
Me- "Yeah, I do."
Well at least for the rest of this month anyway.
It surprises me that it is the women who take the kids trick or treating, even in a rainstorm, the men stay home and give out candy.

Okay so it is actually 7:30 pm, it is slow going as both the boy and cat are acting up to get my attention.

I am in the middle of doing my typing in, and I just found another echo in Echo. I can't believe I hadn't seen it before. I am glad to have found it, for it will help me write that part better, and it helps explain a part to me that was bothering me a bit. But it also makes me sad, because I longed to change that part because what was bothering me about it was it was making me sad, and now that I see it is an echo, it is right, and must stay. Koji echoes the moon bunny.
And now my cat has come to sleep on my left arm, which always makes typing hard, and he takes it so personally when I attempt to nudge him over an inch or two.
Cat wouldn't take no for an answer, retook up the notion of sleeping on my arm every 20 minutes.
10:58 pm now I must call it a night. Bob is home now and annoyed that I am still on computer.
I am midway through typing up a bit of this notebook that is Fresh Oranges. Echo was easy tonight just factual stuff in my notes, but then I turned a page and was plunged into Oranges notes, all story, scenes, emotions. I hoped to get farther through it before stopping, through to other emotions, and tones. But I am here.

blur of wings

whir of wings







for some reason this sequence doesn't flow
do tell me, which photos have to go

I could hear their wings as they all took flight, and then the woosh as they went by.
There were several flocks about, and I filmed and watched them for a long time. (which I am positive had many people at 8:30 am, swearing, as they had to go around my green beetle and me)
Sad to say these are about the clearest shot I got (read as, warning: more blurry birdy photos to come)