mad gaming skillz

so this what i do a few times a month. "Heroscape (sometimes HeroScape) is an expandable turn-based miniature wargaming system" according to wikipedia. the full article is here. cameron (my 11yo son) and i play by our house rules and a game takes about an hour and a half. i'm the only one that will play with him. nobody else has the patience. honestly, i think it's also because somewhere in me there's probably a bit of an 11 yo boy/tomboy lurking. it takes strategy, a little luck, and a bit of ye olde trashtalk. again with the prepubescent boy coming in handy. it usually takes him a little bit of sweet-talking to talk me into a game but once we get into it, it gets competitive. we're pretty evenly matched. (yeah, i'm not even gonna think about the implications that makes on my intelligence.) pictured are two of our favorite heroes, syvarris the archer, who belongs to cameron, and agent carr, my hero. and of course the 20-sided die, beloved of geeks everywhere. anyone that plays it seriously would laugh at us and our batardisation of the rules. then kick our butts.

point of view

when you look at him do you see abject sorrow or do you see meditative prayer?

it's saturday?!

it's bluebonnet season in texas.

this is the holly bush in our backyard.

and just one of the many pieces of milkglass i own.

oh, wow. i just realized it was saturday evening and not sunday. :D i'm off to enjoy it.

playing catchup

yeah, i pretty much suck this week at blogging. and i'm getting yesterday's picture up a day late. but i have a bonus picture. :)

the skeleton and eggshells are from a a little cabinet of drawers full of weird things like kids' teeth, a dead lizard, butterflies and feathers, quartz, and a dead locust. oh and a rabbit's foot keychain. but no ordinary one. this one the fur came off years ago and it's just the poor little skeletal paw. it might seem a little creepy but i see it more as an appreciation of things formerly lovely. my kids bring alot of these things to me. like the skeleton. they felt they had hit the jackpot that day. it was in a little hole between some bricks in a wall, poor thing.

the stamps are my most favorite ones in the whole wide world. :) they were a find in a junk/antique store a few years ago. i fell in love with them and my sis in law bought them for me for my birthday. a few letters are missing so many times i mix upper and lowercase together. the hand is what kills me. love it. the rubber is dried so you have to really press hard to get an impression but i wouldn't trade them for anything.

the things i would lose if there were ever a fire. what would you miss?

shells and say "cheese"

the top one is my macro photo for the challenge but i think the second one is the better composition. i'm really enjoying this challenge. i think i'm learning quite alot, not only about my camera but about photoshop, both of which i've only had about a month and a half.

no time, no words

just a photo for the challenge.

carrying on AKA macro monday

the above is a little case/pouch i made for my ipod nano last year. it has a a swirly embroidered pattern that extends around the side to the back. i drew it on paper first so i could tweak it then drew it directly on the muslin. the inside fabric came from purlsoho or reprodepot, i *think*. i made the case because i needed a place for earbuds to fit, too. that's one of my main complaints about ipod/mp3 cases on the market - no place for earbuds and their tangle of wires when you want to toss the whole thing in your purse or gym (yeah, whatever) bag. perhaps they expect people to never take the earbuds out, just like the plugged-in people in the commercials. hmmmm.

normally my ipod also has a skintight black bodyglove case on it as well so it fits the pouch a little more snug than it looks in the picture. however, the bodyglove case wasn't as photogenic as the pretty blue. ;)

i completely forgot about taking any photos yesterday. oops. it was just a lazy, take-it-as-it-comes sunday. guess i'll not beat myself up about it but i'll try to do better.

i'm very saddened about the olympic torch situation. on the one hand, i feel for for the people of tibet. but i'm also disappointed for the athletes who had a once in a lifetime opportunity to carry the OLYMPIC torch for crying out loud and the rest of the relay in paris had to be cancelled because of protesters. it's a no-win situation.

sketch

just one of my favorite little sketches from the ones i've worked on the last couple days.

booklover at heart

i absolutely love books. love reading them. love buying them. love the feel of them in my hands. love the look of them on my bookshelves, stacked on my endtable, on my desk, on my art table.

when i have spare money, i buy books. if i love it, it joins the shelves of my favorites. if i don't, i donate it to the library. in this small town sometimes our library doesn't have the budget for books that aren't on the bestseller lists.

i put my very favorite fiction books and my art/craft books in my libraything catalog (see right column). maybe one day i'll catalog the other books i have like the j.d. robb "in death" series, the science fiction ones by asimov and pohl, etc.

the books above are my favorite ones related to mental illness. except the jhumpa lahiri one. the title just seemed to fit so well. :D they are:

Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament Kay Redfield Jamison

Interpreter of Maladies Jhumpa Lahiri

An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness Kay Redfield Jamison

The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath

i especially recommend an unquiet mind.

spring is here

i didn't post a challenge photo yesterday as it was an unplugged day for me.

thank you for the wonderful compliments. i'm still trying to figure out the best way to respond to comments. i didn't have to worry about that before. ;) when i got my first bloglines subscriber i was so geeked i told my husband i was going to make a button for the blog that said "serving 1 bloglines subscriber". hehe then if i ever got any more i could just put an X over it and make it a 2.

okay, enough babbling. off to enjoy the beautiful friday evening. hope you're doing the same wherever you are.

day 2 of photo challenge

my palette is a rectangular lid to an enamelware box. it's a wonderful old thing i found thrifting. this is my favorite brush even tho it's just a cheapie and the tip is a bit bent from sitting in the water cup too much.

accidental flowers

one of the irises my mom gave me several years ago that keep coming back every year no matter how hard i ignore them.