Saturday, June 30, 2012

Next Day Forecast: Hot, Hot, and Even Hotter!



What a time for the AC to die out on us. It's bloody hot all day, and it chooses tonight to just stop working. Don't know how long it'll take to get repairs, but I probably won't have much Internet time while it's out, seeing as the computer heats up my room something fierce. 

I took these pictures when I finally had to close my curtains to hide from the blazing summer sun today. They made for interesting photos, regardless of the insane summer heat! (107 degrees F. again today for most of the day!)

Hope you all are having a cooler week than I am, so far! May your ACs stay on and your homes stay cold! 

See you soon! ♥

Friday, June 29, 2012

107° F and Only Getting Hotter!



It's 107 degrees F. here today. It's hot inside, but even hotter outside. If running lights didn't cause the electric bill to soar, I'd close my curtains and keep the scorching sun at bay behind the glass. But I have the ceiling fan on high right now, and a lightbulb won't do anything but make me feel cramped, so I'll exchange the heat for some sunshine. But gosh, it is HOT.

I can't say that this week has been extremely eventful; I haven't really done anything artistic and photography has been out of the question due to the heat, ticks, and mosquitoes just waiting for me to step outside so they can eat me....So, for now, I shall simply recline in my chair and attempt to stay cool while listening to the radio. Oh, the joys of the Deep South.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone! 
Stay cool wherever you are, unless you're lucky enough to actually live somewhere cool or just have mild summers! ♥

Thursday, June 21, 2012

The Typewritten Wonder














Sometime last year, my family and me went antiquing. That isn't anything new, as we have one of our favorite flea market / antique malls nearby that my mother and grandmother have affectionately dubbed 'The Haunt'. But beside the Haunt is a little thrift store we all decided to go and explore for the first time. The inside was jam-packed with everything from clothes to golf-clubs. From the middle to the back of the store was nothing but racks and racks of clothes, while trinkets and furniture littered the front windows. 

Curious, I broke from the pack and meandered along the junks and such in the front window. I think my mother was the one who pointed out the lone typewriter sitting among some other things, and, being a writer and poet, I was instantly taken with it. We turned it over (which was a feat because it was so heavy!), but we could not for the life of us find a price. So we asked the two friendly women at the counter how much it was. After some funny glances between themselves, they apparently realized that they honestly had no idea and had even forgotten it was there. So, they offered it to me for a dollar. (Almost the price of a king-sized candy bar!)

I don't know what I was thinking when I decided to walk out the door and leave it behind, but something in the back of my head was telling me to go back in with my little one dollar bill and adopt the old little creature. 

I did, and I carried it out of the building and to the car like a proud mother. The women at the counter had laughed and smiled when I came charging back in, mind changed. Even though it couldn't write for me, I insisted that, if technology crashed sometime in the future, this little baby would be a dream to have on hand. Ringing up my purchase, they laughed and agreed with me.

And that's how I got my little typewriter.

It's old, though how old I don't know, as there is no date on it that I can see. The only way my little 90s' born self can tell that it is old, aside from the rust, is that on the inside of the case it says, ' Case Made In Italy. Typewriter Made In Holland.'

Okay, to me, seeing something like that in the U.S. that was made in European countries tells me my little dollar typewriter is pretty ancient here. Okay, not ancient, but you know.... It's unusual, at least to me. 

Looking it up, I see many pictures of other Remington typewriters -- some clones, some considerably older. I wonder when my little baby was made...?

She is covered in dust on the inside, and when I open her case a waft of oily-machine smell comes out. Oily and antique-y, like what I would expect an old factory to smell like. (The Haunt is in fact an old factory and smells like this in some places, though not as strongly as my typewriter.) Her keys are bright and intact, and everything seems to be there and in good shape...just unused. Dusty, dirty...where has this old girl been? What stories would she tell about who has written on her and what they have written? If I could stick some batteries in her and zap her into life like my key-clad mechanical Frankenstein, would she write me pages and pages of her history, or would she be ashamed by her dull past and refuse to say a word...?

Either way, I think I would listen intently regardless.

EDIT: After much careful examination, my mother has pointed out that my typewriter is missing its front and side covers, which would explain why all of its insides are outside.....And my fingers are stiff from pounding on the typewriter keys -- writing on a keyboard know feels funny!

Sunday, June 17, 2012

I Love BEEing in the Summer Garden





{honeybees on oregano blossoms}








{bee balm and echinacea}



{red rocks beardtongue}








{pumpkin blossoms (with sleeping honeybee), pumpkin leaves, and baby pumpkins}



{baby figs}






{my famous pear-in-a-bottle and so many pears that the trees are sagging}




{summer squash and green beans}

The gardens are thriving, as are the bees. Everything is vivid and the brightest, purest green imaginable. These sights truly make the summer heat bearable...though the mosquitoes and ticks could vanish, making summer even better, because then I could go outside and sit in the shade without being snacked on.

Speaking of snacking, the family has been enjoying the home grown veggies, and my favorites are the zucchinis. So far we've had those, summer squash, and green beans as extremely healthy additions to dinner, and I never tire of them! The pumpkins, however, have a foggy future: wait for Halloween or eat them? I cannot help but grin evilly at the thought of carving them, but I have never eaten a pumpkin that wasn't blended up and put into a pie, so....

 I know, I have been missing for a while! I don't know how long it has been, but I promise the blog was on my mind the entire time. My mom let me attack her art desk yesterday and I had the grandest time cleaning and re-organizing it. Really. I'm not joking. It looks so nice now, and I spent most of this morning sculpting. I have this wonderful idea for a series of miniature sculptures, and hopefully it will go somewhere. Wish me luck!

Have a wonderful weekend and Father's Day! ♥

Thursday, June 7, 2012

The Evening of Fireflies



Truthfully, I have never caught fireflies and put them in a jar before in my life (if my memory serves correctly...which it doesn't...sometimes). Tonight, though, I got an irresistible urge to snap one up in my palms. And I did!

The booger was hanging right in front of me in midair, his telltale flash of citrus light giving away his every move. He was rather chunky, too.

I pinched the camera around my neck under my arm and waddled after Mr. Lucky Bug with my hands extended. Right before I lunged to catch him, I paused and consulted with my mother (okay...I flat out hollered across the yard. Felt good, to be honest.) just to be sure this little bugger didn't bite or sting or something, then resumed my hunt. Thinking back on it, I was a girl on safari. I felt like a little kid again. I snapped a big one up, cupped my hands together, and tore across the yard calling my little brother over. When he arrived, wide-eyed and gasping, I told him to run inside and get one of my glass juice bottles out of the cabinet in my room. He returned with much squealing, and I gently bopped the buggy into the jar.



I didn't have to twist his arm or even suggest that he help me on my new-found mission. My little brother was gone in a flash, racing around the yard after the random blinking lights. 

Fireflies are freaking easy to catch -- something I never thought they would be. All you have to do is hold up your hand and lightly bop it against one and it sits down better than a show-trained poodle.

I don't know how many we caught, but we were catching too many too fast to care. I would no more than snag one of my own, my method slightly slower as I was official bottle holder, and my little brother would catch five in that time. At one point, one slipped away from him and I leaped into the air before it could ascend into the dimming clouds, a backwards shooting star.


Once it was time to go inside (though I would have preferred to stay outside and catch more, myself...), I put foil over the top of the bottle, punched tiny holes in it, and let my sisters bask in the twinkling little stars my brother and I had stuffed into the bottle. I even managed to get a picture of one blinking! Now that was hard.

While I'm sure the cats would have loved for me to simply let the fireflies go in the house -- my gosh, nobody would be able to get any sleep then! The cats would be ricocheting around like maniacs! Oh wait. They already do that... --, I let the batch go outside. I think I actually attracted more that way, but it was too dark to catch any more by then.

It was a simple joy. I enjoyed doing something simple and childish, while my brother enjoyed the adventure. And seeing his eyes light up like the fireflies he caught in his hands... priceless. Truly.



Sometimes, tea time can be scary!

Perhaps it is because the cookies and tea know that they were invited for one reason...to be consumed!

Wishing you all a happy Thursday from here. Be sure to pause for a few minutes and relax over a nice cup of hot tea. It does wonders for stress relief!

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Fabulous Forgotten Photos













In the fantastic world of digital storage where every single picture I take is organized in month titled folders, I choose the most blog worthy ones and put them in their own folders because I'm too lazy to dig for them among the thousands of others just like them so as to easily locate them when posting time comes. The bummer thing is that I have to CHOOSE which photos are "worthy", while leaving behind ones that are just as good due to lack of space. Well, these photos accumulate over time, and each month's folder is often filled with dozens of dozens of photos. There are a lot on this computer, and hundreds more on my laptop. And they're fabulous, diamonds in the rough indeed! Which is why I want to take some time every once in a while to pick a few of the not-picked ones (oh the irony!) and let them have their five minutes of glory and let you enjoy them! They could be recent, they could be months or even years old, but I still think they have what it takes to be fabulous!
Enjoy!