January Bumblebee

So are you wondering where I found a bumblebee in January? In my photos... where else!

January always finds me working on photos and/or person history. This January I'm editing my blog book.** When I ran across this photo from last June I thought, "I need to try that new watercolor technique I just learned."

Bumblebee watercolor 2013

When I wrote that blog I'd been playing with watercolor filters, but as I've said recently, I wasn't happy with my previous attempts.

Bumblebee filters 2012

I'm still learning and hope that next year I will be further along the digital-photo watercolor painting trail.

** So what are these about?

I got my iPhone in mid-November 2011 so I didn't have many i-photos for that year's blog book. But 2012 is totally different story! Holy cow! I've got Facebook mobile uploads, Instagram uploads, and then UN-loaded photo represented by a plethora of iPhone and Rebel photos that got taken, saved, indexed and that was the end of it!

What's up with that?

Addendum... this is post 1111!

Happy Blog-Birthday to Me!

Five years... 

Count them 1... 2... 3... 4... 5...

I can hardly believe its been five years since I started my blog. It's usually easy for me to keep track of when my blog birthday is because my sweet niece founded her blog, Rosehaven Cottage, just before I did. In fact, Cindy was my inspiration!

Keeping a journal has long been an obsession-of-sorts with me. I learned early on that I could work through many problems by writing them down. I've captured precious Heavenly inspiration that, having gone unwritten, would have been completely lost and forgotten.

My blog has been an extension of my journal... and best of all- a Photo Journal.  My memory works much like a mental photograph album... I have technicolor-surround-sound-smell-a-vision memories!

As I anticipated this day I've gone back and read some of my early posts... I love these journeys  I'm so grateful for this wonderful record that has been created for me, and yes, even my posterity.

About this bumble-bee...



He was just chillin' on the side of my shed. He was so big I could see him from my bedroom window. As I mentioned recently, I've always been fascinated by bumble bees. And this happy little fellow hung out long enough for me to get up-close-and-personal. Isn't he beautiful?

All Done!

And if Missy Edna was still around she would tell me that, in fact, I am finished!

Only cakes are done!



My 2011 Joanie's Balonie blog book is uploading to Blurb as I type. It is always such a wonderful feeling to know that in a week or so I will have a year of my life in my very own little hands!

Half-Finished

Since we got home from Arkansas I've started working on my 2011 Joanie's Balonie Blog Book. This will be my third year to publish my blog for the year. (ah, well, print... I don't imagine anyone else is clamouring to have my blog in print!)

There is just something that I love about the paper and ink. It's very tactile... it has heft and weight... I can just smell it right now!

Since I didn't do a photo each day last year it is coming along faster than previous years. I'm up to 123 pages through the end of June 2011.

My Twenty-Ten book was 404 pages. The sad story here is that I was totally finished with the book, proof-read and everything, when I went to upload it I found that Blurb had changed their layout so I had to go through and totally re-edit all of my pages since I use every square centimeter of printable space they'll give me! Ahhhhh..... I didn't finish until late summer! The upside is I got 40% off my order.

My 2009 book was 320 pages. I worked on it during the 2010 Winter Olympics and had it finished in February.

I've been very pleased with Blurb! Their prices are very reasonable, even without a discount. And their customer service is stellar. Last year my book arrived with some printing errors (IE- text cut off and photos that didn't bleed off the page as edited). I filled out the form, sent documentary photos of the problems and had a new correctly printed book in just a few days. AND they let me keep the book with mistakes (so now I have one to lend!)

I think I may go back and make a 2007-2008 blog book for consistency. I love the quality of the photos. I've usually done home printing of my journals, but now that I've inserted so many photos I want them to be nice.

I love this winter hiatus from yard work AND this year so far I haven't had to shovel any snow! Whee-haw!  Look at all of the time I have to create!

Chambered Nautilus

This is my 1000th post! Wow!

My very talented daughter-in-law has written a song, soon to be released on You Tube that tells about the chambered nautilus. How this little sea creature builds its shell one chamber at a time. As the nautilus grows it builds a new chamber and seals off the old chamber. Megan likened it to healing... closing off that difficult chamber of your life and moving on- growing, getting stronger until, finally, the creature is free.

I loved this analogy! As I've written my blog, one post at a time over the past few years, it has aided me in my journey of healing.

Life in the 'Park

Almost 11 years ago Rebekah and Curtis moved to Yosemite Lakes Park AKA YLP. Caden was just a baby who we put in baby jail his playpen so we could do all the fix-up, painting, etc that needed to be done on their little repo home. If Caden wasn't in baby jail he would eat anything that moved! Ick! YLP has a wonderful rural lifestyle that suits their family just fine.

Over the years they've done all sorts of improvements including adding an in-ground pool (watch out for all the ginormous granite rocks when digging!), a garage conversion, pulling up carpeting and replacing it with laminate or bamboo flooring, removing the popcorn ceilings and replacing it with pine planks. I love visiting here.

When the *little* boys; Caden, almost 12, and Brock, 9.5, got home they were *hot* (yes, it was all of 75°) and they wanted to go swimming. Bek told them that if they wanted to clean all the pine needle debris out of the pool they could swim. "You want to swim... you do the work!" I like that kind of mothering!



Tadhg is in high school now and gets home an hour and a half after his brothers. He's all about skateboards right now and wasn't interested in pool maintenance.



Since we were outside on this *too hot* day (notice she has on a sweater?) Bek pulled out her rake and started cleaning up the flowerbeds inside the pool area... can you say PINE NEEDLES?



This is Super-Girl the bestest cat around! She's only four years old; which is old for a hill-billy cat. Sadly, cats don't have a very long life span here. There are too many predators/dangers here. But they fulfill a very useful purpose... just what kitties do best: keeping the rodent/snake/bird population in check!



"Come here, Sup!" says Brock.



OK- so here is the saddest part about this happy post. I took my whole camera outside to take these pix... I didn't know which lens I would want to use. When did I remember when I'd left it out there? Yep, that would be this morning after it had started raining. Fortunately I was able to dry things off and they are still working properly!

BTW-- THIS IS MY 900th BLOG POST!

306- Wearing Out...

So am I talking about this late autumn zinnia that's been frost bitten? Yes...

But I'm also talking about me. I've posted a photo-of-the-day/365 for the last 23 months! And yes, I'm wearing out.



I'm going to complete my project Twenty-Ten and then I think it will be time to move on.

I will still post when something catches my fancy... you can't get rid of me that easily! But, yes, it's time for change.

BTW... I will never get tired of the magic created by late evening sun.

054- Inside the Book

I've had a few requests to show some of the pages from my blog book. So today is your lucky day! I've enjoyed this process so much. I enjoyed doing it every day last year (ok that's not exactly the truth... some days I felt overwhelmed). I loved the reminiscing as I put the book together. I was ecstatic when I got the printed book in my hands! WOW! But I think that one of the things that I've been the most appreciative of is my wonderful year long journal. I've seen the patterns of weather, moods, hard days, good days. I've reread posts where I can't even remember what my *problem* was, just that I'd handled it. What a blessing to have this wonderful record of me!

This is one of my favorite spreads. I took a series of 11 photos with the objective of creating a panoramic photo.





I liked that I could manipulate the templates in the Blurb software. I could add lots of photos and text, or not so much.























This year I am going to work on the book as I go instead of doing all of it in a 6-week period!

200- Happy 2nd Blog-day to Me

Yes, Happy blog-day to me! Happy blog-day to me! Happy 2nd Blog-day dear Joanie...
Happy blog-day to me!

I can hardly believe how much has changed in the last two years of blogging.

First I have to comment on the progression of my blog header. I started out with the standard Minima Stretch Template with no bells, no whistles... just my photo. Take your choice of whether you want a semi-sane Joanie or a *Don't drive angry!* Joanie. That lived on my blog for 6 months... scary thought! (I took these photos with my *new* Lumix aka Marsupial-pocket-camera while taking care of the Folks in July 2007)



But then I'd discovered Jessica Sprague and enrolled in my first class: Now We're Rockin' . I felt adventurous enough to try my hand at making my own blog header! Hmm... I suppose it is a good first attempt.



Fortunately I learned fast and in just 3 months I changed it out for a cool pink and brown header! Much better...



I stayed with that header for 9 months and then felt like I needed something krafty-er (pun intended, the papers all come from KPertiet_KraftyEleganceKit). I had such fun putting this header together.



Three months later I made some minor changes adding brads and another layer so it blended into the background paper better and changed my photo...



I really like the progression that it shows in my learning curve and artistic abilities. But beyond that it shows my 2 year struggle to let my hair grow. Yes, it takes my hair 2 years to grow the same length as most people do in a year. Oh well...

Then this spring I took a photo of my Bradford Pear in bloom. The minute I saw it on the computer monitor I knew it was my new blog header. I played with blending modes and filters to get just the look I wanted for the *paper* that stretches behind the actual header. It was a wonderful week of learning.



Fortunately there haven't been too many other changes along the way during the last two years. I'm grateful for that. I've used my blog as a journal of sorts. I hope you've enjoyed the journey with me.

144- Rain, Beautiful Rain

This is our 3rd Memorial Day weekend in a row that we've had cool and rainy weather (in 2007 we even had a freeze warning and I had to cover my tomatoes!)

THIS IS NOT A COMPLAINT! I love the rain! (It's just an interesting observation!)

Today after choir practice I notice my ivy was all shiny, clean and covered with raindrops... PHOTO OP!

I just love the look of raindrops on ... well, just about anything! This ivy meets me at my front door and in the winter it kindly sacrifices itself as deer fodder.



By now, you all know that one of my favorite flowers is the Gerbera daisy! These lovelies wait for me on my new deck... ahh, I love their colors and happy little faces!



And let's hear a big shout out for my 300th post!