I finally had my camera in hand when the Mr. stopped by this morning, perched his little ruby self down on my feeder and warned me not to come any closer. I zoomed in on him from my kitchen.

Yesterday morning was nerve-wracking for me. I was just a mess, my heart was racing, sweaty palms, I couldn’t hold a pen without shaking. Why?

A few weeks ago, my hubby picked up the paper. He left one page folded over on my desk, the headline “Putnam looks for bird photos for new contest”. As you can imagine, that caught my eye! So I read the article, and immediately knew which photos I wanted to submit. There are four categories – birds of prey, water/game birds, backyard birds and pet birds. Here were my selections:

  
(all of these are available as prints, click them for their print info.)

I matted them, filled out the paperwork, and dropped them off yesterday. They’ll go up on Friday, and be exhibited through November 19th at the Putnam Museum as a part of the Celebration of Birds exhibit.

Take flight as A Celebration of Birds soars into the Putnam Museum’s exhibit galleries! This impressive museum experience combines the stunning artwork of Birds In Art from the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum with unique specimens and artifacts from the Putnam collections. It’s the perfect synthesis of art, conservation and science!

I’m nervous because there are prizes and awards involved. There are judges, both public and and a panel representing the fields of art, photography and conservation. The criteria: “Accurate or expressive depiction of the subject species; photographic skill; and general appeal”.

Other than getting juried into the MidCoast Fine Arts Organization (I don’t know when, if ever, they update the website, I’m still not listed.), I don’t know when I’ve been this nervous – putting my stuff out there for public criticism and/or acceptance. It’s a very personal thing to have on display for people to judge and give you either a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. My work has never been on exhibit before, either. My MCFA exhibit isn’t scheduled until Spring 2006.

So. They have my prints, they look quite lovely matted and we’ll be seeing them among the competition this weekend. I’ll take photos of them on exhibit, because this is a first for me, and I’m nervous and excited now just to see them on the walls. The general public will get to vote on their favorites, too, so if you’re in the area, please stop over at the Putnam Museum and cast your “People’s Choice” vote between August 11th – 24th!

If you haven’t heard, Phoenix has started up this endeavor of creating a World of Bloggers Cookbook. It’s actually pretty cool, and I have a few recipes I need to add to the growing collection.

So. There’s a button, you can use it. You can also click it and go right on over to the cookbook, which I kinda spiffed up for the cause. (The template was a free premade, I just made a few more page templates, revised the code a bit, made a header and a cute little button – it’s a cute design!)

There’s that dang link again. Well have you clicked it? Did you go? Did you submit a recipe? There’s a form right there (under “submit a recipe”), so please do. I’m sure you have something stashed away in your brain that is uber nummy, yes? And are you a blogger? Yes? No? No matter. Go. Share your homecooked goodies.

There, one more time for good measure, just in case you hadn’t clicked it yet. Go, submit a recipe. It will be fun, and you will get ideas for dinner tonight. Don’t forget to save that button (or hotlink it, really, that’d be okay too) and link it back to the cookbook. Not only would you be encouraging others to submit recipes, you’d also be giving yourself a quick link to go back and use it as a resource. See? It’s all good!

Now to dive right into matters that are gross and disgusting. Do you see what I see? Yes, that’s it, that enlarged circle right there. I just returned from the grocery store where I bought this NIB, NBO (non-ebayers, that’s code for New In Box, Never Been Opened) “Fresh” Brush.

Fresh? Not So Much. Not this morning, anyway.

Gross? Definitely.

Used? That’s debatable.

Tested? I wonder.

(Yes, please do tell me your stories, I’d love to know I’m not the only
pubichairfindingfreshbrushbuyer in the world.)

Iew.

My (insert heart shape here) really belongs to my Doctor.

That’s what my bumper sticker would say, if I were one of those “I (insert heart shape here) stuff” kind of people.

3:00 AM wasn’t nice to me this morning, neither was 3:30, 4, 5 or 6. But, my beloved Dr., whom I love dearly (I mentioned that), is 10 minutes away from getting a marriage proposal from me. Polygamy sholygamy, he’s the man of my dreams. I’m sure my husband will understand.

See, I’m just yammering long enough to waste spend that 10 minutes before I go pick up a prescription he just called in for me. What? Why? One stinking tooth. Shooting pain to the back of my eyeball. Throbbing, owie owie owie. I am one tooth away from reaching our maximum allowable individual annual expense for our almost completely stupid dental insurance. Give. Me. Pain. Pills. Right Now. Kind of pain. Brush and floss every five minutes kind of pain. Tilt your head sideways to drink some coffee and keep it all on the other side of your mouth kind of pain.

My back? Oh yeah, the back pain – well I can hardly notice it now with all the throbbing from the neck up. hah.

Ding! – my ten minutes are up!

Like the little engine that could.

Are you wondering why I haven’t been by? Haven’t been blogsurfing? Haven’t called or written back?

When I finish all this stuff, I will. I promise.

STUFF I GOTTA GET DONE

• 2 loads of laundry
• Call for bid on siding repairK/strike>
• Take out the trash
• Get kids off to school
• Turn up the media player, really loud.
• Finish up 3 illustrations
• Create the logo for the 3 illustrations
• Paint the graduate on the standup wood head cut-out thing for the PreK class by 6PM tonight
• Figure out the budget and pay the bills. Today.
• Add a gazillion (read: 11 of 30) new members to the TT blogroll
• Update TT to let everyone know who’s new
• Watch our little Chick graduate PreK
• Get a big bowl of ice cream

That’s what I’d like to get done today. Wish me luck, eh?

Delayed ’til tomorrow (I’m such an overachiever):

• Reply to e-mail
• Figure out dates for vacation so we can make reservations etc.
• Blogsurf
• Sketch up 3 new portraits (client just confirmed her order this weekend)
• Set up Portrait session with local client for dog portrait (I’m photographing the dog & then painting her portrait)
• Get materials to start working on giant pig project (yes I’ll show you that too)

We had to run for more “stuff” lastnight, and I snatched up Rascal Flatts new CD while we were out. We had a nice long drive while we listened to the full CD – watched a doe as she ate, found some new areas to venture around with tennies and my camera. One song from the album that I wanted to share is “My Wish”.

I like a lot of music in a lot of genres. I always have – but if I make mention of a song (for those of you who don’t know this about me), it’s because it really tugs on my heartstrings and I hope it does the same to you.

To everyone who stopped over yesterday, I’ll be surfing this weekend. If I started now, I would never get my house put back together. I could read Thirteens all day! Today I have to clean-up, finish some illustrations, wait for the floor guys to come (I gave up the do-it-myselfer ‘tude, I’m dog tired.), and get the furniture back in there. Once it’s all set up I’ll take pics and you can see before & afters.

MY WISH
~Rascal Flatts

I hope that days come easy and moments pass slow,
and each road leads you where you want to go,
and if you’re faced with a choice, and you have to choose,
I hope you choose the one that means the most to you.
and if one door opens to another door closed,
I hope you keep on walkin’ till you find the window,
if it’s cold outside,
show the world the warmth of your smile,
more then anything, more then anything,
My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to,
your dreams stay big, and your worries stay small,
You never need to carry more then you can hold,
and while you’re out there getting where you’re getting to,
I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too,
Yeah, this, is my wish.

I hope you never look back, but ya never forget,
all the ones who love you, in the place you left,
I hope you always forgive, and you never regret,
and you help somebody every chance you get,
Oh, you find God’s grace, in every mistake,
and you always give more then you take.
Oh More then anything, Yeah, and more then anything,
My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it,
to your dreams stay big, and your worries stay small,
You never need to carry more then you can hold,
and while you’re out there getting where you’re getting to,
I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too,
Yeah, this, is my wish.

Don’t freak out, it’s just Junebug!

To all of the non-smokers of the world, I offer you my most sincere apologies. To the former smokers of the world, I thank you for your tolerance.

I quit smoking last summer. I started smoking when I was 17 – my mom was a smoker, my man was a smoker, I was always around the smell. I quit when I was pregnant, I started again later. We always smoked outdoors, so that our kids didn’t bathe in a cloud of stink. We knew it wasn’t good for them. We knew it wasn’t good for us. We just didn’t know how bad it was until our little one kept having sinus infections every Monday after hubby would leave for work. He was still smoking.

See, even though he was smoking outside, it still affected her. He’s quit now, doesn’t smoke around the house at all, but I’m sure in the occasional stressful situation while he’s at work, he’s got them handy. That’s okay, because he’s around other smokers, I’m sure. Chick, on the other hand, still gets yicky sinus infections when she’s around a lot of smoke. We finally connected the dots – her runny nose always started on Friday nights, and was a full blown infection by Monday morning. It went away by Wednesday and was back on Friday night. When he quit smoking, her infections quit, too.

Last weekend, she went to a birthday party. There was a group of smokers. She came home with a sinus infection.

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Five things that aggravate the crap out of me:

• Poop. Stanky, nasty poop that’s piling up within the uncut grass that interferes with my ability to take a deep breath of fresh air.
• More poop. Stanky rancid smelling litter box that probably hasn’t been changed in 4 months. At least. The heat and wind are mixing it in with the stank of poop in the overgrown grass and blowing it into every. stinking. window. in. my. house. (Literally. Stinking.)
• Cheap cigarette smoke. Wafting into every open window in our home.
• Ripoffs. People who see something and go “oooh neat idea!” and just take it. Like they thought it up. Like they put all the effort into it. And they spin it and present it as their own brilliant idea, only it’s exactly the same freakin thing. It’s just got a different “face” and a different “name” and the rest? All created by someone else.
• Joint compound. ugh. Joint compound.