How Can We Miss You...

if you won't go away?

That is what I am certain y'all are saying to yourselves right about now.

Here's the facts...

I'm sick.

Like, coughing, sore-throat, stiff-neck, laryngitis-y sick.

Ugh.

Like light-sensitivity, can't stay upright for more than a few minutes sick.

But as a medical professional, and a card-carrying, charter member of the

~Better Living Through Chemistry Club~

I doped myself up with a veritable, life-giving cornucopia 
of healing pharmaceuticals and did one of the few things
that could make me feel alive again...

(and this is gonna sound weird and counter-intuitive to anyone without an artistic, creative bent)

I grabbed my camera and started to create

 I snapped a few pics of a favorite ironstone pitcher,
some vintage plates with absolutely delicious crazing,
and with a dash of chippy wood and other assorted background textures to add interest

And then I played

the original image

I tinkered with lighting

and hues

and zoom

and texture

ta-da and the end.

I'm a bit frustrated in that I fear I'm still better
at the photo editing part than the actual picture taking part.

True confession?

I'm still a little scared of my brand new, bad boy, all-the-bells & whistles camera.

I'm still shooting almost exclusively in auto-mode,
as I simply haven't had the time to dig deeper and learn
all I need to know about aperture, shutter speed, f-stop, ISO,
and a whole buncha other terms which are still largely Greek to me.

But there's time.

I just wanna be the best at everything I try to do, like yesterday.

Not a good trait.

so......

back to bed now!

Thanks for letting me come out and play for a bit,
and for indulging my proclivity towards true confessions and stream-of-consciousness rants.

Y'all are the best.

xo  smooches!!!  xo

Unexpected Inspiration

 Searching for inspiration, I looked to my left...

~a favorite bentwood chair~

then further left...

~ceramic rose art~

then to my right, out the front door...

~a Texas sunset~

Behold, impromptu sunset photo shoot.

Enjoy!

What inspiration lies in wait just over your shoulders?


   Linking with
Funky Junk Interiors

 

Blog Constipation

Do you ever sit here and just stare at your monitor and think 

(or even say out loud, if you're one of those weird types who talk to yourself non-stop. Like me)

"What the #@*! am I gonna blog about today?"

 Welcome to my world.

I spent a couple of hours last night
reading a boatload of old posts from Tara of Blondie 'n' SC.

Dang, but that girl has a gift for expressing herself!

And in a way that's completely relatable and identifiable.

She just rocks, plain and simple.

And then I came back here.

Ugh.

And immediately wanted to just wipe out
90% of my old posts and start over.

↑

(utterly DARLING giveaway win from DustyLu & The Agoura Antique Mart)

My days and nights are all mixed up lately...I've been off work
more than I've been working, so I've been staying up
way into the wee hours and sleeping in late like the slug I am.

This is, no doubt, wreaking havoc on my thought processes, hence my feelings.

What feelings, you ask?

Thank you for asking.

I feel constipated.

Creatively, inspirationally, motivationally plugged-up.

Can anyone else out there relate?

Do they make Metamucil for blogging?

Or has it perhaps advanced to such a state
that I now require a full-blown, blogging colonic?

I smile.

As I'm typing these words, I hear Mr. Twig in the other room snoring.

Ahh, the sleep of the content and the well-adjusted.

Just some random 2am thoughts, shared because somewhere,
some place, someone else gets what I'm talkin' about.

Sleep well, my pretties!

Gratitude

 Sometimes

like lately

when I tend to dwell on what's wrong

instead of everything that is so right in my life

I look outside

and see this

just beyond my window

 As far as the eye can see, this is our property

Such beauty!

And I so often look past it, seeing only shadows rather than light

My sweet friend Suzanne
of
Privet and Holly
  has a remarkably poignant, thought-provoking post up today
and it really got me thinking

About gratitude

and possibilities

and choices we make

and how beauty is all around us

and sometimes...

even within

Please go pay Suzanne a visit

Read this amazing post

and follow her beautiful blog

She's the writer I want to be when if I grow up!

And the Winner Is.....

Sometimes it pays to come late to the party.  ;-)

Chosen via Random Number Generator

   out of 402 comments/entries...

#397

Deb from Garage Sale Gal

You are the lucky winner of this fabulous book!

Thank you so much to everyone who entered, left comments, 

became followers and shouted my giveaway from your respective rooftops!

I'll be having another wonderful giveaway soon, 

so be sure to check back often!

Happy Wednesday!

Want Better Photos?

Any who among us doesn't, right?

 

Sometimes the photos come right out the camera looking just divine

 

And sometimes they don't.

Sorry, Winnie.

So for those times when you could use a little sumpin' sumpin' 

to spruce up those images, there's Photoshop!

 

But, as many of you well know, Photoshop can be a booger to learn.

I'm still struggling with it!

Hometown Girl to the rescue!

 

My sweet new friend Susan of the fabulous blog Hometown Girl 

is having a wonderfully generous giveaway, 

and she's offering one lucky reader this essential book on creating Photoshop art...

I've heard great things about this book, 

so be sure to pay the lovely Susan a visit to enter this amazing giveaway.

Let her know I sent ya!

Click HERE to enter.

Happy Sunday!

Cubby Holes

This is the desk where I blog.

I moved my laptop to give you a better view of this
fabulous cubby that I gaze upon while sitting here

hour after hour

telling my tales and visiting all of you and your wonderful blogs.

Now, I must preface this post by assuring you
that any dust you might think you see here is merely your eyes playing tricks on you.

So there.

I'm so glad we got that settled.

Anyway.

As I am wont to do, my mind wandered
and I began to see the blogging world as a giant cubby of sorts.

Each little hole 

each niche, 

nook or cranny, 

represented a different flavor in the blogging world.

In our particular genre, the lifestyle blogs, there are many sub-genres.

Or for the purposes of this post, many different cubbies.

There are the crafters

The junkers

The photographers

The renovation folks

The SAHM's (stay-at-home-mom's)

The beachy-coastal crowd

The humorists

The shop-owners

The mixed-media artists

The DIY crowd

The designers

and so many more who simply defy pigeonholing.

It's funny...

Because I thought I knew exactly which cubbies I fit into.

On any given day, I feel like I fit into all or none of the above.

But the more of the blogging world I explore,

the more of you I get to know and the more my horizons are broadened,

I begin to question

exactly where I belong.

Which niche is mine.

I thought I knew...

Less than a year ago when I began my blogging adventure,
I was the writer who dreamed of one day owning her own shop.
That much hasn't changed, but I've discovered so much more than I ever anticipated,
both about the blogging world in general, and about myself in particular.

I have grown.

I have learned.

I have changed.

And all three can be messy and uncomfortable, but so worth it in the end.

Right?

But still I wonder...

As I begin to peer inquisitively into different cubbies...into your cubbies

I ask myself

will I be accepted?

Or will I be suddenly transported back to high school...
ah, the days of cliques...(regrettably, do we ever really outgrow them?)

looked at quizzically, perhaps given the once over and sent packing

back to

my

own

little

cubby?

And then

a moment of clarity

Just as my charming cubby houses so many disparate objects,

so many different sides of me,

then so it follows that my blog can serve the same function.

My blog is a journey and an exploration of who I am,
much like I'm sure yours is as well.

So if you see me peering around the corner...

exploring your particular niche...

Please, welcome me as I will you!

Because we both might just discover

something new

and

altogether wonderful!

 I hope you all have a happy weekend!

I'll be trying to catch up on household chores,
and as I'm woefully behind on visiting all of you,
I hope to pay many of your lovely blogs a visit this weekend.

As always, thank you for your friendship
and for deeming me worthy of a read now and again.

I love y'all.  :-)