Fire!

I made this in Photoshop yesterday (finished it up yesterday, anyway). It's going to be in the August mega kit at ndisb. Now I'm working on a marshmallow on a stick.

Keeping Cool

One of the things I liked about this apartment is the patio and the little grassy lawn area out back. Of the four buildings in the complex, ours is the only one where the back porches face east, so we're nice and shady in the afternoon. We've been spending a lot of time out there while it's been so hot.

This is Kate on Sunday, with Ozzie, one of her puppet friends. (We couldn't decide whether he was supposed to be a cheetah or a leopard, so we declared him an ocelot and named him Ozzie.) She was so cute with her little pink skirt on, I just had to get some pictures. We've discovered that if she's out there barefoot she's less likely to run around the side of the building where the beauty bark is, so we don't have to keep chasing after her. We can sit outside and draw or grade papers or talk to Grandma on the cell phone.

When Kate sees this picture she points and says, "Ossie! Ossie!"

Brother, can you spare a bird?

I have a new project which involves drawing animals (and other things). I did this little guy yesterday. I've been teaching Kate to say "chickadee-dee-dee!" She's got the "dee-dee-dee" part down pretty well. And when we were outside the other day we saw a real chickadee, so she got to make the connection.

I had this idea just a little while ago and immediately started searching for photos on pbase and contacting people to ask if I could use their pictures. It's been a real pleasure to converse with these talented, generous people who share a love of nature and the visual image, and I've been thrilled by responses from people like Tom Robbins and Greg Lavaty, who said I could use any of their photos that I want (as long as I credit them and let them know which ones I use). They have so many wonderful, gorgeous pictures. It's seriously like being a kid in a candy store. (Check them out! The chickadee is Tom's.)

I posted this on Two Peas not long ago:

Five reasons why digital designing is better than drawing pencil portraits

• I don't have to make sure my hands are completely clean and dry before I start working.
• I can eat (and drink) while I'm doing it.
• It's not such a big deal if my daughter jostles my elbow in the middle of something.
• I don't have to worry about the post office losing or damaging my designs.
• Two words: undo button!

So now I'm designing and drawing. This should be a bit less stressful than doing portraits, though. At least that's the plan. The chickadee only took me a couple of hours, which is promising. (And we got our scanner hooked back up, finally! Yay! It's been in a box since the move.)

Things have been going well at ndisb--over 200 people have downloaded my firefly sample tag, and about 30 have actually bought the kit. Off to a good start!

Cheesy grin

Well, it's actually a goldfish cracker grin. But they're cheesy.

Look, she's got teeth! Those top ones poked through, finally, too. She had a couple of molars come in before the top front teeth. Our Kate is an odd one.

Kate has started putting words together--mostly with "more," though the other day she was saying "my Daddy!" very cutely. I don't think she knows what "my" means but she sure looked pleased with herself when she was saying it.

Doug has been exchanging family history information with Ola in Norway. He sent us a file with documents going back to the 1600's. Lots of neat stuff. Ola and Doug are fifth cousins once removed.

Boogie Kate

Yesterday we went out to the Freedom Fest at Fort Lewis for a little while. There was a retro 70's band called The Afro-Desiacs (or something like that--I never saw it written out). When we went into the concert area to check them out, they were playing that song that goes "Boogie-oogie-oogie till you just can't boogie no more." So here's Kate boogieing. (That looks funny. Boogying?)



We had a pretty laid-back kind of day. We figured Kate might appreciate fireworks, but would appreciate them even more when she's a little older, so we stayed home. It turned out to be a good thing that we were home, because we got a call from a man in Norway who was doing some family history research. Doug's mom has done a lot of geneaology and has information on where the family came from. This was somebody on the other end of things looking for information on where the family went. It turns out he and Doug are distant cousins. That was pretty cool.

I'd like to send big hugs to some friends who lost their father a couple of days ago. He will be missed.

Here it is!

My big news: I'm now a designer at ndisb.com! (That's Natural Designs in Scrapbooking.) I got my firefly kit up in the store today. It's official--I've got my profile picture there and everything. Woo hoo! (Yes, I'm excited....) And I'll be featured as a new designer in the July newsletter, which should be out in the next week or so. Theresa and everybody else at ndisb have been just great, showing me the ropes and helping me get set up. The biggest problem was getting those big files uploaded--apparently our Comcast cable modem connection, for which we pay good money every month, does not like uploads of more than 10MB or so. Doug was able to take my files to school and send them from there.

You can see all my stuff (so far) here. If you download the free sample tag, there's a coupon for 10% off the full kit. I was especially pleased with the way the stitches and my larkshead knot ribbon turned out.

Doug has been so amazingly patient and helpful as I've been working on all this (everything always takes longer than you think it's going to...). For my next project I'm going to tackle some of these pictures from Ohio. Actually my immediate next project probably should be straightening up the house a bit. And then I really, really have to free up some space on my external hard drive.

Sneaking in an update...

Kate is 18 months old today! How the time has flown. We went to the park and she had a great time on the slide. She can't quite figure out how to sit down on it herself, but she slides, with help, and shrieks "wheeeeee!"

We just got back from Ohio on Saturday, and I've been busy getting things ready for my digi-designer debut (such as it is... one kit so far, but there's still a lot to do to get ready). I'll have pictures of Kate and fireflies (real ones and digi ones) soon!

With a "Waaah! Waaaah!" here (and a "Woot!")

Kate has been complaining a lot when I change her diaper. I think it's not so much that she hates getting her diaper changed, but that she doesn't like being interrupted. She's busy playing and gets dragged off to the changing table. Of course she's going to fuss. "Mom, you're cramping my style!" (In fact it was while she was on the changing table, hollering at me with her mouth wide open, that I first noticed that she had a molar up in the back.) So, I've been singing Old MacDonald to her to distract her. She's got quite a repertoire of animal sounds now, which makes for a very interesting farm. It goes something like this:

Me: "Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O. And on that farm he had a ... tiger! What does a tiger say?"

Kate: "Raah!"

Me: "E-I-E-I-O!"

The farm is populated by the typical cows, sheep, and chickens, but has also been known to feature monkeys, crocodiles, and even dolphins.

We finally heard back from Olympia (actually we called them, since we got tired of waiting). Doug didn't get the job. So I suppose we'll be here for a while longer, yet. This is not a bad thing. It's been a good place for us.

And I have news! I'm going to be a digi-designer! I've got this firefly kit that I've been working on (the bug, not the TV show) for weeks now, and finally finished. More-or-less finished. I may end up doing a little more with it. Anyway, I contacted the owner of one of the online digital scrapbook shops, sent her my kit, and she liked it! She liked it a lot, even! She asked me to join their team. Wheee! Now I get to spend even more time on the computer! Details to follow.

Father's Day

I love watching Doug and Kate play together. They are just so cute. Doug is a great dad. He reads her stories and makes up funny little songs (it's quite hilarious to hear "The Gingerbread Man" in various critical interpretations, like the Marxist reading or the feminist reading) and even lets her play with his cittern sometimes. It's fun to see how excited Kate is when Doug comes home. "Daddy" was one of her first words (along with "hi!"--she started saying them both right around the same time). Sometimes when we're in church she points up at the stand and yells "Daddy!" Here she's finding Daddy's nose.



This is my dad, piled on by most of his progeny. Barb was either a very small baby or not born yet. I was probably about 11. When Dad used to give us horse-back rides, or throw us up in the air and catch us, I always got to go first. He said it was easier to start with the heaviest one and work his way down.

Happy Father's Day to my daddy and Kate's daddy!

Knotty!

I spent a good part of the day yesterday (and part of this morning) making this knot in Photoshop. Isn't it beautiful?

Land of the Lost

I hate losing stuff. I have a couple of big sketchbooks that used to be under our bed in our old apartment. Since the move I haven't seen hide nor hair of them. I can't figure out how something that big could get lost. I mean, they're flat, but they're huge. It's not like they could be tucked away in a drawer or something. I kept things in those sketchbooks, like some homework and handouts from my calligraphy class at BYU, some cool printed papers from Korea, and a drawing of a dragon that my sister Betsey made for me. I searched for them again today with no luck. I was wanting to look through the calligraphy stuff and see if anything there might be useful. Bummer.

Kate has learned "noodles." She says "loo-loo."

wildflowers

We went to the park yesterday looking for ducklings. The ducks were uncooperative, but we did find these pretty blue flowers. Does anybody know what they are?

Ding ding! We have a winner! (Identified by IPeaFreely on Two Peas.) They are Baby Blue-Eyes. Isn't that just perfect?

Circle Journal Q&A

The Squirrelly Girls have been doing circle journals. I let a few pile up on me (well, there was the move, and then I didn't have my scrapping space set up...) so now I am trying to get them done, digitally. I just finished this one and was pleased with the way it turned out so I wanted to share it.

The theme of this journal is a slam book style Q&A. These are the questions:

1. What is something you are most proud of?
2. What makes you happy?
3. Name a place you've always wanted to visit.
4. What is the most important life lesson you have learned so far?
5. Name your biggest phobia.
6. What is your favorite Bible verse?
7. Something or someone that you love dearly...?
8. Finish this sentence. I am...

So here's what I came up with:




Credits: papers from Shabby Princess "Spring Breeze" (recolored) orange brad and plaid ribbon from Anne Langpap's "Spring" kit from the Autumn Leaves Designing with Digital book, small tag from Gina Cabrera's "Under the Mistletoe" kit (recolored), also from the DWD book, zig-zag stitching from Atomic Cupcake (as well as the tear and inking actions).

Porch Painting

Kate has been enjoying painting the porch with water. My mom used to have us do this sometimes, when we were looking for something to do on summer afternoons. And hey, I've got lots of paintbrushes. I introduced Kate to the fine art of porch-painting this last week. Now she asks to go outside and asks for the brushes. Fun!



I realized that I forgot to take pictures of Kate on Monday (I'm still doing that, though I haven't been posting them every week) but these were taken on Sunday, so maybe that's close enough. Kate wasn't feeling great. I made some chicken and red lentils, which I've made before and Kate hasn't had any problems with (she likes it a lot!) but this time I put in some different spices and something apparently disagreed with her pretty strongly. I think she's feeling much better now.

Doug had his interview in Olympia. We should know in a week or so whether he gets to go back and interview with the president of the college.

신태호--Have you seen this man?

In the summer of '96, after Doug and I got engaged and before we got married, I did a three-month internship at a publishing company in Seoul. There was a fellow who worked there named Shin Tae Ho. He was such a nice guy, and lots of fun to work with. Doug and I got to meet up with him and his wife a couple of times when we were there teaching English, but then we didn't keep in touch. Out of curiosity I typed his name into google (with my newfound mad Korean typing skills). I figured there would be quite a lot of men named Shin Tae Ho, but I tried an image search and up popped his picture! He's listed as an instructor at koreaedu.com, but unfortunately I can't find anything there about emailing the company. Bummer. (I'll have to get somebody else to take a look at it for me--maybe I'm just missing something obvious.)

Maybe someday he'll google himself and find this entry.

All I want for Mother's Day...

Mom doesn't need breakfast in bed
a new car
a diamond tennis bracelet
a steak dinner
a dozen red roses

All Mom wants is a picture.

Now hold still!

Happy Mother's Day!

This is a picture of my mom with Kate, taken while we were in Ohio last summer.

Mom was the one who taught me how to roll a ball of yarn so that it pulls out from the middle, how to tell if an egg is cooked by spinning it, and how to whack a head of lettuce on the counter to knock the core loose. She also taught me how to give a talk in church and how to pad a writing assignment to make it long enough. She took care of me when I was sick, typed my stories for me on that old manual typewriter, and let me make a pickle-juice popsicle when I was ten, even though she knew it wouldn't be as good as I thought.

Mom's the one with the funny little wake-up songs and corny jokes. She inspired a love of reading, and animals, and creativity. When I read "Fox in Socks" to my daughter I can hear myself saying it the way my mom read it to me.

Happy Mother's Day, Grandma!

Random stuff

Yesterday I used some big swoopy letters from the font "Aquiline" to put some random lines across the background of a layout I was working on. The layout is of a Young Women activity, so I suppose I should get permission before posting it, but part of the swoops looks like this. (That curlicue thing is the ¶ character--go figure! It's alt+0182) I like that irregular bumpy, broken-up line look. So today I was messing around in Photoshop and using layered filters to see if I could reproduce the effect. I think I got pretty close. Then I took it a little further and came up with this:

Ooh, pretty! Kind of a batik thing going on there. This has possibilities.

This week I've been busy editing photos from a couple of shoots I did (that sounds so formal... ha!) and messing around with various things. We went to the zoo yesterday and Kate got to walk on walls and benches. That's her latest thing. Sometimes she tries to do it without any help, which is rather nerve-wracking.

Kate has learned "apple" (which she says like "bappu") and "meow," and "done!" When she's sitting in her high chair and has finished eating, she holds out her arms and says "Da!" Of course we think she's brilliant.

Doug has an interview at a college in Olympia next week! We are excited.

Children's Day

May 5th, 1992, was the day I arrived in Korea for my mission. It was Children's Day, a national holiday, and I saw lots of people out with their kids, with balloons on their cars, and people flying kites along the river. On Children's Day parents often dress their kids up and take pictures of them in front of the flowers. Azaleas are very common there. We have a lot of azaleas and rhododendrons here in Washington state, too, which makes me feel nice and Springy.



This is Kate on Children's Day last year. She was so little!

This year we went to the park. She wasn't interested in posing for me, but had a good time running around, and I did manage to get a few pictures with the flowers.





Kate enjoyed walking back and forth across the bridge in the Japanese garden. It's a little too steep for her to manage on her own, so her daddy gave her a hand.

After taking the obligatory flower photos we went down to the beach, where Kate sat in the wet sand and got her pants wet, and we watched people throwing sticks out into the water for their dogs to fetch. There was also a seal swimming by, poking his head up to look at all the strange people.




Here's Kate helping her daddy push the stroller along the packed wet sand. She's crazy about pushing things.

A Children's Day Digital Freebie

Tomorrow (May 5th) is Children's Day in Korea. Since I just figured out how to type in Korean, I thought I would make some word art for the occasion.



Here are six titles (one vertical) that say Children's Day ("orini nal") in Korean hangul, and a date with Chinese characters. It's a single png file, so you'll have to cut out the pieces you want. I hope this will be useful to somebody!

Click here to download the file (right-click and choose "save target as").