My Latest Drawings

I haven't posted any of my drawings lately because I hadn't finished any. :( I took a break from artwork during Christmas (much needed after the art show) and didn't take it up again until January. I had started this picture of the path to Natural Bridge just before the art show, but I had only got the basic lights and darks in place. Now it is completed:

I love the contrasts in the picture. They are softer in a pencil drawing than they are in a B&W photo, but I think the shades and sunlight make it interesting. This is a drawing of a barn at my uncle's farm: The tree didn't look as crooked when I drew it as it did when I framed it. I'm trying to decide if I want to add some extra branches to the left so it doesn't look so much like it is falling over. The barn was neat to draw -- lots of chipped paint and tiny details that took forever to work out.

I also started a drawing of geese on a pond, but I've let it rest for a few weeks now. I'm thinking about printing another reference photo and moving on for the time being. It makes a nice composition, but there are so many twigs and branches on the bank of the pond that I'm feel somewhat depressed just looking at it. I think I'm going to draw something else and then come back to it. :)

Quote Book

I have lots of favorite quotes from movies, books, TV shows, historical figures...... lots of quotes from lots of different sources. A few years ago, I got the idea from a movie to write down all my favorites in a nice journal. Well, my mom gave me a nice journal for Christmas that year. It was exactly what I had in mind -- a wire-bound book, with sturdy pink pages and a scene of a garden gate on the cover. It look like just the thing to write quotes in. Anyone could open it and read it, but it was durable enough to last, as well as pretty. As I started trying to write down quotes, however, I drew a big blank. On the first page is a paragraph from a book I read by Matthew Henry and a poem by Emily Dickinson about books. After that, I couldn't come up with anything. Sure, I had several ideas of what I would like to write in it, but I got carried away in the details. I would think of a line I enjoyed from a movie. Then, as I began to write it, I would wonder if this was the exact wording. After all, this has to perfect! Or if I thought of a quote from a book, I would want to try to find the exact place in the book so that I could quote it word for word. Not very practical. Eventually, I gave up and put my notebook on my bookshelf and pretty much forgot about it. As I was reorganizing my room after Christmas, I found my quote book, and all those ideas came back to me. Besides, I had just found a few wonderful lines in some books I had just read. So, I started working my way through all my ideas. I have several Jane Austen quotes. I couldn't help it. After reading all her books again after Christmas, there were so many lines that I wanted to remember. There are a few movies quotes. I even quoted in its entirety one of my favorite songs from a musical and I may do that again because there are so many musicals with songs that I love. I am going to have to do some research to quote exactly some famous historical sayings, but I can take my time with that. I really want to add to it year after year. It's a fun project. On the down side, I showed my sister a page of it and she said she couldn't read a word of my handwriting. :( I don't think it's that bad, but I should make an effort to be neater. It's perfectly legible to me, but I also have a shorthand all my own that I fall into if I'm not careful, even when I'm trying to write perfectly. It must be the writer in me. I write so much that I have a tendency to scribble, even though I love beautiful handwriting. Anyway, I'm going to try to make my quote book full of interesting quotes and neat. If anyone has any favorite quotes they would like to share, I would love to hear them!

Just A Few Thoughts.....

I have some things I want to post about, but I'm finding my blogging time is somewhat limited lately. I'm still adjusting to my work schedule and figuring out a way to work the other things I like to do into my new routine. My hours are actually really good. I always have at least two days off every week. I still need to make an effort to plan my days so that my writing/drawing/blogging and even my hobbies like quilting and crafts don't get completely pushed aside. Now that I've gotten used to standing on my feet for 6-8 hours at a time, I'm not nearly as tired as I was at first, so that's a big help towards accomplishing more at home.

This Monday, of course, was President's Day. I didn't have to go in to work until ten, so I sat on the couch while I ate breakfast and watched the Fox News morning shows. The stories they were telling about different presidents in honor of the holiday were interesting to hear. Then I went to work and found a whole new experience waiting for me. I knew sales were going to be good that day, so, since I got there a little early, I picked up a couple of items and gave them to one of the cashiers to put on hold for me to buy when I left. The checkout wasn't crowded then at all. I went to the back, clocked in, and went back up front to see where I was assigned for the day. I set up at one cash register and checked out one or two people as they came through. It still didn't seem more crowded than ordinary. Then another person came through. Then another. Suddenly I looked up and realized all three registers had more than five people in their line. From that point on, it didn't stop. I barely got a lunch break. There was not one minute when there was not someone in my line for the rest of the day. People were buying cartloads of clothes and pillows and towels -- I hate trying to bag towels -- and it seemed like 5 o'clock would never get there. To top it off, somebody accidently set off some sort of alarm in the afternoon and it went off for fifteen minutes. During the middle of this, a customer whom I had just finished ringing up, who had paid for her purchases, looked at her receipt and realized she'd been overcharged four dollars. So, while the alarm was still screeching, I had to call aside a manager to get her order voided. It was an interesting day, to say the least, nevermind exhausting -- my first taste of a really crowded sale day in the retail world. I don't even want to think about what Day After Thanksgiving sales are like.

Yesterday, I was supposed to get off at three. It was a really slow day, which makes for a boring day, but after Monday, boring was okay with me. One of the managers came up to me around lunch, however, and asked if I could work another two hours or more because they were short of help. I think more than half are out sick with the flu. I really hope I don't get that. I'm trying to wash my hands a lot.

It is so cold here. It's seemed so strange to see people buying Easter decorations and springtime clothing when it is so freezing cold. I know warm weather will be here one day, but for now it seems like it is never going to get here.

101 POSTS!!!

I've reached a blogging milestone -- 101 posts! I can't believe it. I only started this in July. It seemed like it would take forever to even make fifty posts. Now, seven months later, I've reached 101. There are two sad things about this, though. The first one is that I had so many more posts in my head that I wanted to write but never got around to. I should have closer to 150 posts. The second, is that a read in a blogging article that you should delete the first 100 posts of your blog, because one day you're going to look back at them and be totally embarassed. So, I guess I should delete everything and start again. Hmmm....maybe after the next 100. :)

Snowy Day

This was one of the few shots of her face I could get. She decided to play a new game -- avoid the camera. Everytime she was posed just soooo cute, I would click the button and discover on the preview that she had bounced away. Anyway, here she is, eating the snow. :)
Snow-covered iris leaves.

Gabrielle. I knelt down in the snow and Princess ran up and sat down beside me. That would have been really sweet if she had managed to look in the direction of the camera as well.

A snowy sidewalk. Snow-covered bushes.
Now this one is just sooo cute. Look at the snow on her nose.

I was absolutely freezing.
Awwwww. She found one of her toys buried in the snow.
Snow falling through the trees. It was really neat to see the snowflakes land on my camera. I could see all their intricate little patterns before they melted away.

Taking a break. Me again. I should have brightened this picture. It looks a little gray. Oh well.

A Long Weekend

This weekend was not so fun. My mom got sick last week and Friday, my last day of work for the week, I started to feel bad, too. When I left work, I was really miserable. Thankfully, this was my weekend off, so I was able to rest and recuperate. By the time I had to go back to work on Monday, I felt a lot better. Yesterday, we had a really bad winter storm. I had to be at work early and the roads were slushy, the ground was snowy, and it was pouring rain. I thought it was going to be such a waste of time for the store to even be open. Who would go shopping on a day like that? Well, you would be surprised at the number of people who did. Everybody who came through my line were saying they had a snow day off from work/school so they decided to come shopping! I'm off from work again today and the weather is much better. There is a light snow falling and the ground is pretty much covered. It's not quite a "perfect" snow because it's not heavy enough to cover up all the grass, but it is still really pretty to see when I look outside. This is the first snow we've had all year that has actually covered the ground and lasted for more than two hours. I'm going to take some pictures this afternoon and post them. My dog absolutely loves snow. When I let her outside she runs and jumps like a puppy and stops every five seconds to eat some. I think it is her equivalent of ice cream. :)

Where I've been this week...

My blogging has been a little scattered and choppy over the last week. The reason for that would be that I took a part-time job at a local department store. It's been an interesting experience. Two weeks ago, I started looking for a job and putting in applications at a few places. Last Monday, I went to this store to turn in my job application, had an interview on the spot, was hired that afternoon, went to orientation the next night, and today is only my second day off since. I was so exhausted the first few days that I could hardly stand it. My feet hurt so bad. I've adjusted to it now, though, so I think I'm going to be able to stay with it.

As far as liking or disliking it -- I'm sort of neutral. The environment is not bad and the people I work with have mostly seemed pretty nice. The job is just a job. It takes up a much larger portion of my day than I had counted on because by the time I take time to dress for it, allow extra travel time in case of traffic, work my shift and drive home, it seems like I've spent the whole day at work even if I've only clocked six hours. I definitely prefer being home to being at work, but I don't hate the job.

Learning how to do the job has been another experience. I work the cash register. Doesn't that sound so simple? Not when you have to learn how to take every kind of payment, make exchanges, operate the computer, make the scanner work, remove hangers from clothes, and bag purchases, all while interacting with customers who are convinced that practically every item on their ticket was supposed to be on a better sale. Someone trained me for about thirty minutes on my first day, but since then I've been mostly on my own to figure everything out, with somebody (hopefully) at the next register in case I don't know what to do. One of the worst things happened my second day. There was another cashier working with me, but she had left me alone while she took a fifteen minute break. Literally two customers after she left, I had big problems. I accidentally keyed in the wrong amount for her purchases (the screen is really touch-sensitive) so the computer calculated the change with all the wrong numbers and I nearly had a panic attack. Nobody had shown me how to work the telephone, so I couldn't page for help and literally everybody but me was on their lunch break. I was standing there frantic, unsure of what to do, when another cashier happened to walk through the doors and told me how to fix it. What I was really glad of was that the woman whose order I messed up and the next two people in line were so nice and patient. They didn't seem annoyed at all that I took fifteen minutes to solve a problem.

On the other hand, there have been people who have been really annoyed with everything and irate when I couldn't give them back a coupon to use again. So it's definitely been a learning experience about people. The main thing I have learned so far? Be nice to everybody, whether you're the customer or the cashier!

P.S. Blogger's spell check has not been working all week, so please forgive any typos :)

I'm Tagged!! :)

Elizabeth tagged me for this meme, which is really fun because I haven't been tagged for a meme before! The rules are:




(1) Link to the person that tagged you. (2) Post the rules on your blog. (3) Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself. (4) Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs. (5) Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.






1. I always peel apples before I eat them.


2. When I paint or draw, I always "blend" with my fingers. Even though I have an assortment of supplies made for the purpose right beside me, I find my fingers work best. My art teacher thought that was kind of odd. :)


3. Whenever I'm thinking really hard, I tug on a specific curl of my hair on the left side of my head.


4. I cannot carry a tune -- at all.


5. My favorite color combination is anything with white -- black and white, red and white, blue and white, pink and white....you get the idea. That's why a lot of my clothes are those colors.


6. I have never been able to grow my fingernails out. Either I had to keep them short to play the piano or they broke off on their own. No nail polish collection for me!





So, these are my non-important charcteristics and weird quirks. I tag Lizzy Christine and Tiffany. Yes, I know it's not six people.

Mansfield Park

Last night was the last new Jane Austen movie for me for a while. I think they are showing the old Pride and Prejudice in five parts for February and March before they show the new Sense and Sensibility. I was looking forward to this new adaptation of Mansfield Park. I was afraid that it was going to be too far off from the story when I saw pictures of the cast last week. Why have they got Fanny's hair down? Not just down, but with a modern, shaggy haircut. Well, when I watched it last night, her hair didn't bother me like I expected it to. I think the logic behind it was that she was supposed to be a poor relation who didn't have the time or servants to style her hair in the ornate styles the other women wore. I liked the movie pretty well. My complaint with it was that it moved so fast. It seemed to dive headfirst into the story and leave the audience to figure out who everybody was and what was going on. They didn't change the story much, they just left a lot of things out. If I watch this on DVD, I might like it better, because I read somewhere that PBS is cutting out several minutes of the movies to fit their programming schedule. I thought they picked great actors to play Henry and Mary Crawford, but the way they portrayed Fanny's character was a little confusing to me. She was supposed to be so shy, quiet, and reserved. Why was she running all over the house chasing the dog and giggling then? But when she interacted with the other characters, she seemed more shy and quiet, so I didn't let it bother me too much. To sum it up, I think I'll watch this again when it comes out on DVD. it wasn't exactly perfect, but I liked it anyway. :)