Procrastination ...

  I'm normally not a procrastinator, I tend to go about my business in a somewhat orderly fashion and try not to bite off more that I can chew, (thoroughly chew). But ... for some reason I have been dragging my feet a little when it comes to this convention.

     It was so difficult to get time off approved before the cut off date for discounted enrollment and to qualify for the pre convention airbrushing class that is being held the whole day on Thursday (limit 12 students).

     By the time I finally got approved, the sense of urgency to get enrolled early was no longer an issue. I ended up waiting much later than I would have liked, to sign up and to reserve my room. Good news is ...  I did finally get those details taken care of last week, and I have also finally finished most of the finishing touches for my 2 costumes I plan on using while I'm there.

            

     The biggest mistake that I made is waiting until today ... Monday afternoon ... and I leave on Thursday morning ... to stop by to pick up air brushes from my sister at the Party store.

     Ahem ... the photo above does little to express how overwhelmed I feel at the moment. I walked in to the party store and said hello to everyone, and my sister began to direct Robert (Hi Robert) to start collecting the airbrush stuff to bring to my car.

     We're talking a large air compressor, a tiny air compressor, air brushes, hoses, paints and paints and paints galore, tag boards, paint holders, and various other airbrushing paraphernalia yet to be determined (at least by me).

     Theresa has never really used this stuff herself, she bought it before the kids graduated High School and moved off to college. They were doing parties ... tagging T-shirts, giant pillows, etc., and now the stuff is just taking up valuable storage space inside her shop.

     So she is happy to get rid of it, (this stuff has hardly ever been used) and now I've got tons of equipment, enough to start a very profitable business actually. Anyone want to move to Florida and go into the Airbrush Tagging business with me? lol

     I have no idea where I am going to store all of this stuff, I have no idea what I should take and what I should leave here. If I don't get things figures out soon I'll have no room for my suitcases and my 5 foot Moon Fairy Wings.

      Right now I'm on my way to my Dream Weaver Class. :.:.;.sigh ;.:.:. guess I'll worry about it later!

 

                           

Just checking in ...

    This was a relatively quiet weekend, (the one day that it was). I spent yesterday packing and taking care of some last minute details, it was my last day off before I leave for Orlando on Thursday.

     The most important thing that I did was take my car in for an oil change and a shot of freon. There is no surviving the drive in South Florida with AC issues, especially mid afternoon.

      I'm so looking forward to having a few days off work. These 6 day work weeks have a way of catching up with you.

     Not much to write about at the moment, but hoping to come back with pictures and stories galore.

     BTW ... Florida is not a big pineapple state or anything but they can grow here. I thought I would share this one with you. Not everyone knows that the fruit grows from the top of the plant!

                                           

 

7 more days ...

 but who's counting?

     I met up with my friend Karen after work yesterday to do a little work on our costumes for the Face and Body Painting Convention next week, I'm starting to get really excited about it.

   

     We started out at the Rag Shop for some last minute supplies and then off to her place for a little work, play and pizza.

     I've mentioned before that Karen is a clown, so ... she had tons of creatively cool stuff in her spare bedroom which I'd like to think of as the clown's closet.

     Karen is a sometimes reader of Rain, she already knows I like to take pictures of everything and bring them back here to share with you so she was pretty good about letting me take photos while I was there. I tried not to get to carried away, it was our first photo encounter and that can take a little getting use to. lol

     We started off taking photos of the kids ... now, how cute are they? She uses them in some skits she does (ventriloquist) but don't tell the little ones because they have no idea that they're dolls ... I swear they think that they're just part of the family.

   

     We tried on wigs and wings and then we did actually get some work done on the costumes, a few finishing touches and we'll be all set.

     You may remember that the convention has a Shakespeare's Mid Summer Night's Dream, theme. I've come up with 2 costumes, one is a Renaissance Maiden and the other I will wear to the MSND Ball on the last night ... It's a Moon Fairy, looking forward to creating an outrageous face for that costume.

     After we finished up our work on the costumes (actually, Karen did most of the work this time), we pulled her paints out in the middle of the floor and we played around with them a little. I'm so looking forward to next weeks adventure, being single and over 40 does have it's advantages ... if you remember to give yourself permission to play from time to time.

     BTW ... thanks Kenny (Karen's husband), for being such a good sport about the mess we were making last night, It's hard to get creative without it!

     Anyway ... more to come about Face Painting, Shakespeare, the Convention and the Clowns.

                                                  

The rest of the series ...

 I've finished working on the rest of my favorite photos from Friday. I did have a hard time narrowing it down, so I've posted the entire series here.

 

 

 

   It's funny, no matter how I try to move on to a different subject matter, I keep finding flowers and butterflies in front of my lense ... can't help it, I love them.  

 

 

 

      I still have not found out the name of the purple one from the first entry, I think it is my favorite out of the bunch.

 

                                               

    

     If you are wondering why there is no title or caption on this photo yet, read the Saturday morning edit, on the previous entry. lol

      

A quick walk with the butterflies ...

Seeing Stephen's photos <-- from the butterfly habitat yesterday, reminded me that I was way over due for a visit to Butterfly World.

     I stopped by on my way home from work, got there less than an hour before closing time but I did get in a few good shots while I was there. Having an annual pass is a good thing, I can stop in any time I want to. Yep ... the pass was a good investment.                   

 

       I thought I would post a few of my favorite shots over the weekend but be warned, I'm having a hard time narrowing it down to just a few. I decided to start with a flower.

  Saturday morning edit: A few of you have asked what kind of flower this is so I'm adding a shot of the entire flower to give you a hint. Mostly because "I dunno" lol.

     If anyone already knows the name of this purple beauty, let us know. If not, I'll try to look it up this weekend, time permitting of course.

     Hmmm ... maybe if I post some of the other favorite photos from yesterday's walk with the butterflies, someone with more time, energy and creativity than I have, might come up with a caption, a poem, a haiku or at least a name. It's worth a try, right? Here goes! :.:.:.wink;.:.;.wink:.:.:.

                                               

Useless color play ...

    I just wanted to practice some of the things that we went over in Photo Shop class tonight. This is no work of art or anything, but it did give me the opportunity to try duplicating an image, change colors with hue and saturation, grouping with previous layer for custom text, using a gradient and creating a frame, I know ... this one has puzzle pieces on it!  The photo on the right is the original.                         

  

                                                                            

Pandanus ...

                                                                                                                 dornbrau was right!

   I want to thank all of you so much for your delightful and candid response to my "Is it just me" question in my last entry. You guys are great and yes ... it does help to know that you are not alone.

     Everyone knows that I am going through some growing pains right now. My kids are grown, the baby has moved out, the divorce is finally over and for the first time in my life, my time is demanded and directed by no one but me. I'm not ashamed to say that this has been a little bit scary and that I have felt quite overwhelmed by it all, but the good news is, I'm starting to get use to it.

     I have recently come to the conclusion that it's way past time to make a new game plan for this fresh new chapter in my life. I figure that I am obligated to spend about 43 hours at work each week, 6 hours driving to work, 6 hours getting ready for work and about 45 hours sleeping. If I do the math, I find that this is about 100 out of the 168 hours available in a week.

     The other 68 hours are mine, all mine and what I choose to do with them will determine who I am and where I am going. I've made a commitment to go to classes two nights a week, that adds a grand total of 5 more hours to the allotment. The project at hand will be figuring out how to balance the 63 hours that I have left over.

     I do appreciate your help with my question and thanks also for baring with me while I try to get things figured out. I'll do my best not to bore you to much with the details but I do tend to write about things I am dealing with and I do plan on remaining part of this community.  I love this place.

     Now, about that last photo ...   dornbrau was right this is a  Pandanus tree. I have heard that the Indians did use the fibrous fruit as a food source at one time. It seems they may have mixed it with coconut to make it more palatable. I guess this might be a good thing to know if ever your were on a survival mission out in the Everglades or something.

     I remember collecting Palmetto Palm hearts to feast on when I was in Civil Air Patrol as a kid and being tested on survival skills. We also would drain the water that collected inside the center of wild airplants, strain the water through our T-shirts, boil it a little and then use it to fill our canteens. Ahhh ... to be 15 again, on second thought maybe 42 is not so bad.

    I do want to thank Stephen at Sometimes Photo Blog for highlighting that photo in his nightly photo spotlights. Stephen's journal is one of my long time daily reads, his entries are always full of photography and journaling advice and his consistency with managing a nightly post (like clock work) and his attention to detail, is always inspiring. I'll admit that I tend to get as excited about having one of my photos spotlighted in the Sometimes Photo Blog as I do about being Editor's #1 weekly pick.

     SloMo (miss you girl) taught me when I first started Rain, that it's much more rewarding to be recognized from within. So ... I want to thank Steven and the rest of you that make time to recognize other writers in your own journals. This is part of what makes J-Land such a great community.

                                                                                   

Is it just me?

     

 

                                                                                                               Anybody know what this is?

     It's no secret that it takes a lot of time and energy to keep up an online journal. The creative thought that goes into even the simplest of entries is very time consuming, not to mention the amount of time spent taking and editing photos, creating an animation or graphic, writing a song, a poem or a haiku, painting a beautiful picture, drawing a cartoon or just telling silly inside stories about the magically mundane moments in our lives.

        A book that I'm reading right now, "Organizing for the Creative Person" <-- describes the creative person as someone with the gift of being able to perceive global matters and produce emotion, image, intuition, sensuality, creativity and humor in a charismatic manner that may easily draw others to them.

     The book also mentions that this kind of creativity resides in the right hemisphere of the brain and that the right hemisphere lacks any concept of time, structure or detail. These are traits that reside on the left side of the brain. 

     It seems as if the author of this book is trying to say, that the more time we spend using the right side of our brain, the higher our risk of becoming a bit disorganized in other aspects of our lives.

     Since so many of you are among the most creative people that I know, I was wondering if any of you can relate to some degree, about becoming less organized in other areas when you are spending so much time being creative, or is it just me?

                                                        

Exploding Toads In Germany ...

  

    I've spent a little time taking photos in my own back yard this week, this is one of them. My sister gave me these frogs on my 30th birthday, we all know that was a looooong time ago, right?

    While sorting through this weeks photos for keepers, I decided that this would be one of them because it reminded me of a story my friend David<- David <- David <- was telling me about at work on Sunday. (Things have been so hectic at work these days there has been little time for silly small talk, comparing notes on current events or sharing random thoughts and ideas about art, the ocean or Sushi) I miss that. I miss you too Stella! Oh and Patty P's a Grandma now ... welcome Baby Lopez! OK, OK, enough of the sappy "my coworkers are my friends and I miss them stuff" it's very possible that they could be reading.  

     Now for the story ... It seems that the toad population in Hamburg Germany is exploding, literally exploding. The toads are found swelled up almost 4 times their normal size and eventually they simply explode! Fungus? Virus? Bacteria? Suicide? No ... you might be surprised to find out the details at -> The Washington Post.

                                                            

Hawaiian Tropic ...

     has nothing on Maxillaria Tenuifolia.

   

  So it's not the most significant bloom in the bunch, it more than makes up for it with it's incredibly strong fragrance. There is absolutely no question why this little guy is called the  Coconut Orchid. When you walk past it this time of year you can almost hear Jimmy Buffet singing about Margarittaville and all of those tourist covered with oil. Mmmm ... do you think AOL might come up with a share fragrance button someday??? Nahhhh ... on second thought, that might not be a good thing!

       I don't want to forget to take photos of the familiar and common place in my own back yard. I do know that there are a few things here that are new and unfamiliar to some. Have I ever mentioned that I loooooove living in Paradise?

                                                             Good Night All

                                                               

Something New