Leanne Wildermuth : Artist by Nature

What Color Is It?

March

2008

I fell asleep lastnight thinking about someone. This person has a life full of struggle and uncertainty, hardship, and then some. At least that’s what it looks like from the outside. I only know what I see – because I really don’t know her at all. There’s something about her situation, her lifestyle, the choices that she makes – that fills my mind up with color, I guess because words fail me. As I lay there with my eyes closed, swirls of deep, dark aubergine filled my vision like a cup. The color was moving, turning deeper and darker as it settled in a backdrop glowing with red-orange umber. Mountains of burgundy mounted up behind the continual movement of the aubergine. The auburgene swirled and moved forward as though it needed to define itself – it was like I was painting these colors on a canvas just to convey this mood. In fact, a lot of times I have to put those visions to canvas otherwise the same vision will appear to me over and over until I do.

When I got up this morning I could still see this “canvas”. It really evoked a lot of emotion, and I still can’t put words to what emotion that is. It got me thinking about other experiences in my life that I’ve associated with color, one in particular was such a cool thing that I’ll never forget – and that was during childbirth.

While I was in transitional labor with Catybug, I had a focal point that I didn’t expect. When I closed my eyes, I saw a bright glow of orange. As I focused on that color, I noticed that as my contraction subsided, the color reduced down to a tiny circle. It happened with every contraction – and it was really awesome because after the first couple of contractions, I counted on that glow to show me when it was almost over. That made the pain of childbirth totally bearable, as I knew exactly when the pain would subside, and just knowing that it would was enough for me!

There are other situations that I’ve had color experiences with, feelings that I associate with a certain hue. What I want to know is – has this ever happened to you?

Do share, what’s the feeling – and what color is it? If this hasn’t happened to you, then tell me this – what words would you put to the color aubergine?

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Filed under: It's Personal.

3.14.08

I started eating core foods again on Tuesday. Wednesday: down 1.1lbs. Thursday: down 1.6lbs. Friday: down .7lbs. Total: 3.4lbs. I can do this!

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Ever Snuggled A Parrot?

March

2008

quaker parrot enjoying a neck rub' class=

quaker parrot sucking his thumb claws during petting and snuggle time' class=

Catybug and Quinnie, our Quaker Parrot, have a very special bond. She snuggles him and gives him neckrubs while he yawns, gets sleepy, and eventually sucks his thumb (thumb? claw? feet? … you decide LOL!) . I wish I could tell you he does it for me, but he doesn’t. He loves me, he talks to me, I am the one he mimicks with sounds and vocals. But when it comes to snuggle time, Caty has that little bird wrapped around her fingers. He’ll sit in one place for hours with her while she caresses his head.

Such a cool little bird. Did you know that parrots behave this way? Would you have ever guessed you could snuggle a bird as much as you could any other furbaby? We had no idea when we got him that he’d allow us this very personal relationship, it has been a real learning experience!

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Filed under: Quintin the Quaker

Politics

March

2008

Saw the blurb “Democrats must join together to defeat the Republicans” on a blog – like it’s a cause to wage war on. A bit extreme, I think…

Can someone please explain to me how “Republicans” are so horribly awful that “they must be defeated”? Don’t Republicans make up like – over half – of the United States population? And in that vein, why is it that a Republican candidate can graciously bow out so that the party doesn’t split, and Democrats can’t seem to figure out that the in-fighting in their own party is doing exactly that?

Please, discuss.

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Filed under: Chit Chat

3.13.08

While I’m a big fan of most of the finalists on AI this season, Amanda makes my ears cringe. What IS that noise, anyway?

(7 comments)

Nummy Breakfast

March

2008

eggbeaters pictsweet steamer veggies cheese breakfast healthy food

I made this yesterday morning and it’s good enough to have again today, and share, too. Here are the ingredients:

3/4 c. Eggbeaters
1 bag Pictsweet Deluxe Steamer Veggies – Spring vegetables with asparagus
1 lg. pinch reduced fat mexican blend shredded cheese

Directions:

Start the veggies steaming in the microwave for 5 minutes. When about 2 minutes remain, spray a non-stick pan with (olive oil) cooking spray and start scrambling 3/4 c. eggbeaters. Once the veggies are ready, cut a tiny hole in the bag and drain the juices. When it’s drained, open up the bag and dump it into the eggbeaters, finish cooking it together. When it’s just about finished, add a pinch of shredded cheese and mix it up.

I’m all about an easy & fast breakfast.

Here’s the nutrition info:

Calories: 290
Fat: 5g
Carbs: 23.5g
Protein: 25g

Seriously – it couldn’t be better, ore more filling! I also had a half turkey sandwich with grapes for lunch, and 8 oz. of chicken breast with about 2 cups of broccoli and broccoflower for dinner – and dropped 1.10 lbs. just yesterday. I even splurged with a bit of fat free blue bunny frozen yogurt, too. I’m being much more strict again – this winter has been horrible on my hips. It’s time to put down the brownies and turn off the oven! (At least for today. And maybe tomorrow, too – but I make no promises once the PMS monster hits.)

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Filed under: Health n' Weight, In The Kitchen

Life Explained via e-Mail

March

2008

I received this e-mail forward (urgh, yes, I know) – for some unknown reason I actually read it. And then laughed. And then thought – I should post this – just in case someone hasn’t seen it a million times already – because I haven’t even seen it once yet!

Enjoy!

Man’s first Mistake

On the first day, God created the dog and said:

‘Sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. For this, I will give you a life span of twenty years.’

The dog said: ‘That’s a long time to be barking. How about only ten years and I’ll give you back the other ten?’

So God agreed.

**********

On the second day, God created the monkey and said:

‘Entertain people, do tricks, and make them laugh. For this, I’ll give you a twenty-year life span.’

The monkey said: ‘Monkey tricks for twenty years? That’s a pretty long time to perform. How about I give you back ten like the Dog did?’

And God agreed.

**********

On the third day, God created the cow and said:

‘You must go into the field with the farmer all day long and suffer under the sun, have calves and give milk to support the farmer’s family. For this, I will give you a life span of sixty years.’

The cow said: ‘That’s kind of a tough life you want me to live for sixty years. How about twenty and I’ll give back the other forty?’

And God agreed again.

**********

On the fourth day, God created man and said:

‘Eat, sleep, play, marry and enjoy your life. For this, I’ll give you twenty years.’

But man said: ‘Only twenty years? Could you possibly give me my twenty, the forty the cow gave back, the ten the monkey gave back, and the ten the dog gave back; that makes eighty, okay?’

‘Okay,’ said God, ‘You asked for it.’

So that is why for our first twenty years we eat, sleep, play and enjoy ourselves. For the next forty years we slave in the sun to support our family. For the next ten years we do monkey tricks to entertain the grandchildren. And for the last ten years we sit on the front porch and bark at everyone.

Life has now been explained to you.

There is no need to thank me for this valuable information. I’m doing it as a public service.

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Filed under: Hahaha! That's Funny.

Got Spam in YOUR Templates?

March

2008

This is not the first time I’ve seen this – spammers somehow hack into WordPress template files and add in their junk, styling it inline so it’s not visible on your blog. Hidden junk mail, basically, in your theme. It happened to me over a year ago, but this particular incident was a refresher course as I found it in a client’s header file while upgrading and updating her theme. Please, please please – check your theme template files regularly. Particularly your header.php, those buggers like to get their links in there and set up negative margins before your content begins on the page.

Here are a couple of screenshots – click to enlarge. You can see the menu_rll is the div id used to enclose the spam. In this case, they hacked into both the header.php as well as the main index.php.

Found in the header.php template

Found in the index.php templateIt is helpful if you change your admin password somewhat regularly, other than that I can’t tell you exactly how they manage to get in there. I’ve had a pretty secure password for years (I rotate it out) and keep my file permissions secure as well, so I’ve never been able to get a straight answer about the “how does this happen”. It’s aggravating – as these types of links should be PAID for and you should not be spammed or hacked into displaying them without your knowledge. I have tried to pursue these sites before (none of these links are live, I will not give them any free linkage here) – they always play dumb that they had no idea the people they pay to manage their links were hacking sites.

So folks, this might be news to you – but you might just find some spammy links in your template files. Go on and check, it only takes a minute. Look under presentation/theme editor and just scroll through your template files to make sure there’s nothing spammy going on with your website that you don’t know about. And also – if you’re not using the most current version of WordPress, It’s time to upgrade.. Eliminate any possible vulnerability.

UPDATE: Another WP user discovered massive amounts of spam in his template, it actually affected his Google ads – the ad content started getting “spammy” and he couldn’t figure out why. Check out his experience here.

Another update: I am also being told that when upgrading – it is HIGHLY advised to completely delete everything but the wp-config file and upload the fresh upgrade to ensure any files that were hacked are gone and avoid future vulnerabilities. For detailed and easy to follow upgrade instructions, see my post here.

Also see: TechCrunch “WordPress Security Issues Lead To Mass Hacking. Is Your Blog Next?“

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Filed under: How-to's, Technicalities

Yo Quiero el Nappo in el Sunlighto.

March

2008

He moves from the back of the house in the morning (his current station in the sun) to the front of the house in the afternoons to lay in the sun. He’s got it made. Oh and hubby wants me to mention he’s totally litter box trained. Hasn’t had an accidento on el carpeto in over 3 days.

Taco Bell has me all puzzled about how Copper would sound if he could talk. Dude. I hear him speaking Spanish when he smiles and pouts at me, and yes – he absolutely smiles and pouts. I’ll try to capture that so you can see. I’m sure we’ll be having caption contests. Oh, yes we will. I already have the starter photo for the first Copper Caption Contest for you, so you might want to brush up on your Alta Vista Spanish.

Our sweet little dude needs a category. I’ll be accepting category name suggestions here in comments and then we’ll vote after I get a handful of cool snarky Coppertastic titles. Get creative! I love creative. Once he’s got a category, captioning shallo commencio.

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Filed under: Chit Chat, Copperlicious