Troubled Waters Art Show

Ross had an artist's reception for another show today! He had 5 pieces in the show, all some of the best works there.

The boys and I are so proud of him! They loved his name tag - "Ross Becht, Artist" and of course, the snacks!

All in all a great show. It closes May 30th.

To see more about the pieces Ross had at the show, check out his website!

www.RossBecht.com

Ross Becht, Artist!

Ross has a website! And an Instagram! Check them out here:

Ross Becht, Artist

(a little preview of the awesome work he's been doing, which is available for sale on our Etsy site):

And here's his Instagram. Follow him!

Ross Becht Instagram

List #12 - Random Things

1. I've discovered that Unsweetened Silk Soy Milk, with just a tiny bit of honey, a good dash of vanilla, and lots of cinnamon is a good replacement for Horchata...one of the things I've been missing most on this carbs-forbidden diet. (Or at least, it's good enough considering I haven't been allowed to have a real honest to goodness tall cup of deliciousness like Horchata in over a month. No juice or chocolate milk either.) It's awfully nice to have something a little sweet that's also good for me!

2. We bought the kiddo a used toy kitchen and he is mad in love with it. It's really adorable. Today he made me "soup" with eggs, oranges, mushrooms, tomatoes and milk. Mmmmm.

3. Looks like my sub is all lined up for my maternity leave! Hooray! It was a little nerve wracking there waiting for months for the District to get stuff together, but I think (fingers crossed) it's handled now. I've got a huge Google Drive folder full of things for her to use, and we're probably getting together on Friday to go over lessons and procedures and things.

4. I saw an article that said there were going to be a whole bunch of new emojis, but they still don't have a "fingers crossed" emoji. That's silly...I'd use it all the time if they had one. Maybe with the next update...fingers crossed.

5. I really want French Onion Soup for dinner tonight...but we have no onions. We also don't have giant croutons.

6. Ross's artwork is really amazing me lately. I'll do a post soon about what he's been up to at the old Naval Air Station on the island...or maybe I'll get him to write it!

7. We're also, hopefully, fairly close to being able to launch his artist website! I've got an Instagram account set up for him, we've bought the domain RossBecht.com, claimed RossBecht.wordpress.com, and have worked out how to link it all together. So it's mostly just a matter of getting all the right photos together and putting them on pages on the site!

8. I've joined a really great group called Alameda Family Collective - a bunch of families on the island with young kids who plan fun outings and get-togethers and are just awesome. The kiddo is really enjoying playing with other kids his age, and I'm really enjoying time to talk to other moms about mom things...I don't get to do a ton of that, aside from with my sister and mom, and so (I never thought I'd say this but it's totally true) I'm really appreciating sitting around talking about potty training and pregnancy and husbands and all that stuff.

9. Some good stuff has happened with regard to the diabetes and Kaiser and that whole mess. I put a little update at the end of the post where I wrote about it. And I think I'm finally ready to share that one with the larger crowd, not just the couple of you awesome people who subscribe to my blog or have my page bookmarked on your phone  :-)

Camping!

Feeling very ambitious today - we're heading off to the Redwoods for camping! We've got a tent cabin reserved at Big Basin (cause you know there's no way I'm gonna be able to get myself up off an air mattress on the ground!)

The kiddo has been counting down the "sleeps" left til camping, and Ross is so in need of nature time - I'm looking forward to it myself. Big trees and good friends are two of my favorite things.

Ross is planning to wander off and do a bunch of paintings. He's been working on a series of the buildings on the old Naval Air Station, very technical and architectural, and very cool. The en plein air stuff he'll be doing in the Redwoods will be a nice contrast, I think. I'm excited to see them, anyways!

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Thankful today for the health of both my kiddos, my nephew's giant drooly smiles, low-sugar jam, long walks in pretty places, and distractingly silly tv shows (Sons of Anarchy and True Blood, I'm talking to you).

Planes!

3 of the 4 planes are done! They're going up on Etsy this week!

New Item!

Check out this awesome painting Ross did over the past couple days. It's his spirit animal! I'm about it put it up on Etsy, but I don't know what to call it...

Also, we had this very entertaining conversation today over gchat while I was waiting to see my boss...

Lynds how are you guys doing?
Ross fine... I'm almost done w/ the moose... the kiddo is currently working on a piece using opaque pigmented wax and dining implements...
Lynds oooh, creative
Ross very avant garde
his working title is.... crayon on place mat #31
or just 31 for short
Lynds alternately, "daddydrawatrain?"

I have no idea if this is funny to people who don't know us...but since pretty much only people who know us are reading this, you'll probably get a kick out of it.

A New Series

Ross has gotten started on a new series! Here come airplanes!!!

 He starts by designing the images in a program called SketchUp, which lets him make 3D models of the planes. He loves this, because he loves planes and engineering. It's a perfect match.

Once he's happy with the designs, he prints them out and uses his super cool Huion LED Light Pad to trace the image onto watercolor paper. 

Seriously this thing is so cool - adjustable brightness, flexible, super light and even ever-so-slightly sticky.
Thanks dad!

Then, he fills the plane with masking fluid, which is kind of like rubber cement, but easy to remove. That way, he can paint the sky and the background without having to worry about going outside (or inside) the lines. 

 This is as far as he's gotten on any of them now, but there are 4 different planes in different states of completion hanging out on our lovely dining room table right now. The kiddo is going nuts trying to get at them!

I imagine we'll have a whole series of planes up and listed on Etsy within a week or so! I'm excited!!!

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I'm thankful today for Campbell's tomato soup, because it tastes like my childhood. Also for safe spaces to talk about tricky things, new opportunities, glittery orange nailpolish, and Canada, because they made this awesome commercial:

SEO, or learning how to tag

This whole thing really is an adventure in learning how to work the internet. I really thought I understood how search and other stuff worked, but I definitely did not. I learned yesterday that the tags I use on Etsy should be phrases, not individual words! I'd been putting up all the individual words that I thought would make up the searches people would use to find our stuff. So my tags for the cute little Penguin Painting on Etsy yesterday read something like this:

penguin
painting
watercolor
original
black
white
8x10
kids room

But that's no good! People would need to just search for "painting" or "black" in order for any of Ross's work to show up. So now, I've been slowly working on updating the tags, and it actually helped already! Now, the tags look more like this:

greeting cards
paper goods
butterfly cards
blank cards
thank you cards
custom cards
monarch butterfly

A couple of the things I edited have already started getting some more action on Etsy. People are favoriting them, and following the shop, which is awesome! I'm also trying out the tag "Mother in law gift" becaue I feel like that might be one of the toughest gifts to figure out, and I think that the butterfly cards in particular would be good for moms in law! We'll see...my fingers are crossed!

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I'm thankful today for egg-nog, space heaters, mirepoix, colleagues who keep me sane in the midst of a ton of crazy, and my sister, who told me that it's ok to let things slide, just for a bit, every once in a while. And she's so right.

Gift Guide for My Sister

So Kelle is the best. Like the absolute best. My best closest friend, possibly the funniest person I know, with incredible taste to boot. Her style is edgy, funky, playful, and dark. Think Tim Burton meets Marilyn Monroe, as styled by Yolandi, with just a touch of Lisa Frank thrown in there for fun.

something kind of like this...(images from here and here and here)

Once, she dyed her hair cotton candy pink and shaved her eyebrows off. Another time, she singlehandedly brought novelty socks back into style. She can rock a tuxedo like no other woman, and she's got this amazing ability to raise her left eyebrow in a way that totally transforms her face. She goes from funny face to evil eye in less than a second, and it's stunning.

So I put together a list of things I found on Etsy that seem right up her alley. A gift guide, of sorts, for someone like her - someone who's a little spooky (she loves zombies, ghost stories, and wearing real animal skulls), a little posh (I mean, she was featured by Bumble&Bumble), and a whole lot unique.

A few highlights:

This stunning vintage dress just screams Kelle to me

And I know she'd hang these keys in her house, probably right next to her cow skull

This is my favorite find, though - an antique suitcase complete with toiletry set. It's totally impractical, probably haunted, and super cool.

You can check out the rest of what I hunted down for her here: Gifts for the Spooky Romantic and follow me on Etsy if you're not already!

Random stuff about my day

The kiddo just woke up from a nap, and walked out to see Ross hard at work on a set of animal greeting cards. He ran over to the table, excitedly said "Daddy painting!" and when Ross agreed, "Yes, I'm painting, thanks for letting me know that," E replied with "Hooray, goojob daddy!"

Too cute. Probably way cuter to me than to you, but it's kind of my job to think he's the best.

Ross finished up a set of cards today - they're super cute. Haven't photographed them yet since the sun went down before they were completed, but it's been very bright and sunny this weekend, so I'm hopeful for tomorrow.

E learned to open the baby gates this weekend. We have SO much kidproofing to do, it's ridiculous.

On the better side of kid learning, he also learned to talk about himself in the first person. Kind of. Now, instead of "Emmett did it" he says "I did it Emmett." So we're close.

Etsy Etsy Etsy

We've sold 5 pieces! And have a request for a custom order on a 6th! This is so exciting! The stuffed animal paintings seem to be the biggest hit, with the butterflies a close second. We're scrambling to get everything ready to go - for some reason, I thought it would take longer for people to make purchases, but nope! They're buying away! I just love the thought of Ross's art hanging on people's walls - it makes me so happy having it here, I just know it'll make other people smile too.

Here's what we've sold so far:

Butterfly Greeting Card Set

Penguin Painting

Animals Greeting Card Set

Blue Butterfly

Panda Bear Painting

I've been having fun figuring out all the little nooks and crannies on Etsy. I started following several people; mostly family and friends, but also a few people who have excellent taste, like Anastaisha and Denise.

I also started using Treasuries, which is kind of like creating tiny little shops or museum displays. Hunt down items that fit into a particular theme, display them, and ta-da, mini-Pinterest! I have no idea which of the two came first, but I love using both of them to organize my ideas. So far I only have one treasury, called Ooooh, Sparkly, all about the things I would have loved, or did love, when I was younger and highly motivated by glitter. (To be honest, I would still buy all those things now, because I'm still highly motivated by glitter. And Neil Diamond).

It's also a lot like my Pinterest board called Sparkly. Like I said, glitter. I'm always amazed when people get upset about being glitter-bombed. That's a dream come true, not a weapon!

 I'm working on another treasury called Hauntingly Beautiful (I know, it's stolen from an episode of How I Met Your Mother, but "The Pineapple Incident" is probably the best episode of that show ever. So there!) I had it all done, but I must've forgotten to hit "save" or something, because my description is there, but my items aren't. Dangit! I'll redo it and share it at some point.

Also, I think there's a chance I could get Ross into creating Treasury lists. He likes hunting things down, seeing threads of connection between things that others might miss, and really really loves things that contrast harsh and delicate in adept ways. That's kind of what he likes to do with his art, so it makes sense he'd like it when other people do it well, too.

He also got really into my Pinterest board called "Ross Makes Things." The second I showed it to him, he was off and running with ideas and critiques, so we may start adding wooden toys and other things to the shop sooner than later!

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I'm thankful today for being an adult. It means I can have pie for dinner if I want, which was exactly what I did want. Also, for Lysol. It was needed. Hot toddies with lots of lemon and honey and whiskey and Grand Marnier left over from Thanksgiving (we're getting sick around here - the kiddo is crying and being consoled by Ross as we speak). And for a job that lets me bring my kid to work when necessary without batting an eye. I'm so lucky to work where I do. Finally, I'm thankful that Ross turned on the heater. Seriously, the man NEVER does this. But today (probably because he's getting sick too), he did. Which means I'm almost warm for the first time in ages!

Email Sent!

So Ross and I sent out an email letting all our family know about the art he's been making. I'm so nervous and excited that we've really done it - we're actually trying to get his wonderful art sold, and I love it! Here's the gist of what we told everyone:

     Happy Holidays family! Here's hoping you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and that you're all headed into an even better year-end celebration. Ross and I definitely have a lot to be thankful for this year, and one of those things is the recent chance to start a business together!

      As you may know, Ross is an artist. Way back when, before I stole him away from art school in New York, he had plans to be a professional graphic designer, painter and art teacher. His art was actually one of the things that made me love him so much - it was thoughtful and striking and so gorgeous. Once he moved out to California, other jobs became his priority, and rather than being his career, Ross's art became a hobby.  

     Recently, though, a few of his pieces were featured in a benefit auction (full disclosure - I planned the auction and convinced him to let me include his work), and, just like I knew they would, his paintings sold quickly! Soon after that, I was able to convince him to give "artist" another shot as a career choice, and now here we are, launching our business together! He makes the art, I write about it, and we're hopeful that you all will like his work as much as I do (being a serious artist, Ross will never admit to liking anything he's created...but he sure does beam with pride when Emmett asks him to tell stories about the bear and penguin he's painting!)
Called "Paint By Number Parents," our home-based, online, decorative art shop offers unique and one-of-a-kind paintings and photographs created by Ross, with the occasional addition from me. Our products are designed with both kids and parents in mind - art that is sweet and kid friendly, but also appealing to parents. 

     It's been great fun brainstorming design ideas with Ross, and I think a lot of the fun shows in the things we have for sale - adorable animal watercolors, custom made name or initial paintings, fancy and impressive watercolor greeting cards, canvas mounted photographs, with unique lighted paintings and more soon to come!

We offered a coupon there for some awesome items like Ross's Stuffed Animal Greeting Cards, or one of my favorite photographs from our honeymoon, and I'm going to throw a great deal out here too! 

Use the coupon code "Holiday2013" and we'll give you 30% off anything in the shop. Free shipping! We'd love for you to use it, hopefully on something you really like. 

Crossing my fingers, cause here we go!

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I'm thankful today for butter on popcorn, tin foil, Thanksgiving leftovers, rock-paper-scissors, and driving around with the heat on and windows down

How to Find Your Passion, Part 2

Disclaimer: If you're reading this with a lot of grammatical mistakes and a sort of speech/ stream of consciousness vibe/ flagrant abuse of ellipses... then that means Lyn didn't edit this too much, we have very different writing styles. If you're reading this and it's grammatically correct... then that means that she edited it... and deleted this whole disclaimer.

Oh, and I haven't read her answers to the questions brought up by this article yet so this should be interesting.

Step 1: Answer the Question: What do you love?

I love creating things...painting obviously...otherwise I think the name of this blog would be different... but also woodworking, drawing, cooking...and wildly obscure metaphors to explain concepts (ask me about my football based Congestive Heart Failure explanation sometime). There's a lot of pride in a finished piece that you're happy with.

I also love teaching people things/ being the guy with the answers. Seeing someone "get it," whether it's a difficult new concept, or an activity that they've never tried, is a pretty awesome feeling. Explaining a medical condition and the treatment to a patient so they truly understood and felt more confident about letting me working on them, talking politics or sociology with someone in a way that they understand it's relation to current events, science (what little I know)...that sort of stuff. Teaching probably wouldn't be a bad choice for me if it wasn't for being surrounded by loud, obnoxious, Know-it-all kids. (I remember myself in high school)

I love the adrenalin rush of a win in a stressful situation. Like an live-fire ambush or room clearing exercise drill in the Marine Corps or an acute medical call on the ambulance where you're always one step ahead and watching the patient improve with the treatment choices you made.

Step 2: Answer the Question: What do you loathe?

I loathe busy work... might explain my decision not to re-enlist. If there is not logical, productive reason to be doing something other than "because I said so," don't make me do it. I can totally accept "I don't have time to explain it to you right now, so get it done and I'll explain it all to you later," or even better, "there's absolutely no good reason to be doing this but I want you to look busy in case my bosses walk in." (Emmett, if you read this someday "because I said so" is a totally acceptable reason for me to give to you!)

I loathe people being mean or disrespectful just because of a misplaced sense of authority...public service, municipal, local, and federal is all service to the people, not the other way around. Your badge, stars, bars, stripes, degrees, title, or office don't give you the right to belittle, ignore, or disregard somebody's wishes. You don't have to honor them but you do have to recognize and consider them.

I loathe working retail.  From corporate to customers to pay, with the occasional exception of coworkers there is almost no redeeming quality to working retail. I'm thinking no one is getting barista for any corporate outfits as their dream job.

I loathe inconsiderate people who are oblivious of their surroundings. People who stop in the middle of aisles, people who let their kids run amok, people who feel that they are the most important person in the world and everyone else need to submit to their will. (see: the majority of customers I encountered working retail).

Step 3: Discover the Seven Seeds of Your Soul

1. Even if you didn’t get paid a cent for it, would you still do this? I'd do (and right now I am doing) art without getting paid. I probably wouldn't volunteer teach and I definitely wouldn't go back to being a Marine or a Paramedic without getting paid (it was barely worth the little pay I got.)

2. Would doing this inspire you every day? I like getting the new ideas for artwork and figuring out the riddle of getting it done... so yeah, that's inspiring. Teaching would be pretty great with the right batch of kids or maybe the right school... but the way that the education system is going there are really no guarantees. The Military and Emergency Medicine pretty much sent me the other way... unless misanthropy can be inspired?

3. Does doing this come as naturally to you as breathing? I guess organizing ideas into images and structures is pretty natural to me... I had an idea for a new series of paintings tonight and immediately after the idea hit me I had picture layouts and compositions figured out. The words "I wonder what that would look like" seldom come out of my mouth because I've already imagined what it would look like. (I'm usually disappointed about the actors they chose for characters in books I've read).

4. Do you feel you’ve been given a special gift to do this? Like Olsher said... this is sometimes a hard thing to admit. When I was a Paramedic and sometimes as a Marine, people would say, "I could never do that"...sometimes they meant the academic side of learning medicine but mostly they meant the occasional blood, frequent exposure to bodily fluids, common invasive procedures, and constant jackasses. I would always tell them they could do it, because I've seen people do some amazing things under stress. It's desire that they didn't have. But I've known people who really wanted to do some of the things I have done with art and weren't able to. At every other job on the list there have been people were doing it better than I was...sometimes because of natural ability and sometimes because of desire...so yeah, while I know I'm no great artist, I do think that I've got a skill that some don't have.

5. Does time seem to fly by when you’re engaged in this activity? Art: yes. Marine: seldom. Paramedic: sometimes. Retail: only in comparison to scooping out my own eyeballs with a rusty spoon.

6. Can you possibly make money doing this? Art: Hopefully. Marine: yes but at physical cost. Paramedic: yes but at mental cost. Retail: yes but the cost would be ten years with a possible chance of parole in five.

There are plenty of things that I love and hate that I could expound upon in these lists... but in the interest of brevity... and the fact that Lyn keeps asking, "how's it going in there?"... I'll end it here. I'm happy with my primary job of taking care of Emmett (which covers the love and some of the hate questions) but I'm also very glad to be doing art regularly again and be in this project with my amazing wife.

PS - ...Was that good babe?

Finding Your Passion (not the dirty kind...this isn't that kind of blog)

We got back from Chicago late last night, and all I wanna say about it right now is that I fucking love my family. The best. Ever. I'll probably fill you in on the visit at some point, but not today.

Today, I want to write about this article, called "How to Identify the One Thing You Were Born To Do," which is a terrible title, but not necessarily a terrible thing to try to figure out . Ross showed it to me today, and it's been really interesting to talk to him about it. See, we're just about to do an actual launch of the business. I'm in the process of registering our business name, and we've got holds on a couple of website domains so that we can try to really make this happen. Is it jumping the gun? Maybe...but as Ross and I have worked on building this up (me doing the writing and the networking, and him doing the art and creating ideas), we've gotten more and more attached to making Paint By Number Parents work as a real business. He is loving painting every day, and I'm remembering that I've been a writer (though never really professionally) for a long time. Plus there are piles of other reasons we want to make this happen: we work well together; he's going to be a stay-at-home dad for a while still; we need some more income but we don't want E to be in full time childcare; with a new baby on the way at Kelle's house, Ross is going to have his hands full taking care of kiddos so school may take longer than expected. Plus the whole thing is fun, but I think I mentioned that already.

Anyways, Ross showed me this article today and it got us both thinking about how this project kind of actually fits who we are and what we love. Or, as Steve Olsher puts it, Paint By Number Parents just may be our "what." Figuring out your passion can apparently be done in three simple steps, which is awesome, and so I'm not only going to go through them myself, but I'm gonna make Ross do it on here too. It's about time his voice got added in as more than a critic of contemporary music.

We start, of course, with step 1: Answer the Question: What do you love?

Focus on the activities and interactions that lift your soul. Avoid listing skills you’re good at simply because you’ve practiced them over time. Now, dig even deeper. Remember a time years ago when you laughed hysterically? What triggered the laughter? And as an adult, what gives you goose bumps? Maybe it’s the moment when you come up with a really good idea and realize you’ve found the solution you’ve been looking for. Tie the goose bumps moment to descriptions that encapsulate the activity in noun or adjective form — such as singing, teaching or healing. When recalling a special moment, try not to be too literal; look for the subtext. For example, imagine you have a fond memory of an evening spent bowling with your grandmother. Instead of writing “bowling with Grammy” on your list, broaden it to “investing time with a beloved family member.”

This one is pretty easy, at least to start. I love teaching because I love explaining things...if you've ever hung out with me after I've had more than one glass of white wine, you know this. I just can't help myself - the words are out of my mouth before my brain has a chance to tell me that no one's interested in the love affairs of Louis XIV. I love writing, and telling stories. I love reading. So. Much. And cooking. I really like cooking, especially with Ross, making things with much too much butter. I love my family, and playing board games with them after dinner. I love wine - the flavors, the varieties, the fanciness, the opportunity to make fun of the fanciness. I love gossip, which means I love news, and politics and soap operas. I love cuddling, and capers (the sneaky kind, not the salty kind). I love terribly good music (If Neil Diamond and MC Hammer teamed up together to cover Debbie Gibson songs, I just might die in an explosion of glitter and snarky bliss.)

Next, step 2: Answer the Question: What do you loathe?

If you’re clear about which activities you despise, you can establish a strong foundation for moving your life forward by starting to let them go. Whatever it is that pushes your buttons (in a bad way), write them down. Even if you worry that others might see these things as petty, include them. The key is to acknowledge your thoughts and feelings. Now, reflect on why you deplore an activity. Tie these moments to descriptions that encapsulate the activity in noun or adjective form — for example, cleaning, watching TV, eating unhealthy food, being around miserable people, shopping.

Oooooh, fun game. Ok, I hate: people who are in the way (seriously, you don't have to stop your shopping cart in the middle of the aisle, make small talk with the clerk at the DMV, walk three people wide on the sidewalk, or drive slowly); defeatism; technology that doesn't work; being out of touch with the people I love; spiders; intolerance, or lack of compassion; when people say "nucular" instead of "nuclear"; Garrison Keillor's smug voice and the fact that he has a weekly program that people listen to; blaming the victim;  Men's Rights Activitsts; when people don't see their privilege; running (seriously, why would you make people do this?!); the NRA (and all other instances of promotion of violence as an answer to any problem, including other violence); actually, that last one should probably just say "violence of any kind" because I'm a big ol' hippie; not being taken seriously when I'm trying to be serious, or having my actions/complaints dismissed as unimportant, or not being able to do something about "it," whatever the "it" may be.

And finally, step 3: Discover the Seven Seeds of Your Soul

Get your lists of Things I Love Doing and Things I Hate Doing. Start with the top item on your list of Things I Love Doing and ask yourself each of the six questions below as it relates to the activity. Each answer should be a definitive yes or no.

1. Even if you didn’t get paid a cent for it, would you still do this?
2. Would doing this inspire you every day?
3. Does doing this come as naturally to you as breathing?
4. Do you feel you’ve been given a special gift to do this?
5. Does time seem to fly by when you’re engaged in this activity?
6. Can you possibly make money doing this?

Ok, so I can answer "Yes" to all these questions for: Teaching, writing, and cooking. Next!

When you arrive at an item with six yes answers, circle it and then ask yourself this final question: Does performing this activity involve anything on my list of Things I Hate Doing?

Hmmmm...actually, teaching may just be the only one of those things that doesn't fit...but I can't know for sure, because I've never tried to write or cook professionally, and if you don't know that doing something as a job is different than doing something for fun, you have never tried to follow your dreams. Also, I love teaching. And I teach at an amazing school, which in part means that I can do more than one thing, since teaching hours are so conducive to life outside of work, if you're doing it right! So with that, I'm gonna hand this off to Ross, who has just finished making me a dee-yicious salad for dinner. Next post will be from him!

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Today, I'm thankful for a grocery store that's nearby, for salad, for people who believe that "it takes a village to raise a child," for "Parks and Recreation," and for sake.

Butterfly Photography

I'm having the darndest time figuring out how to photograph the lovely paintings Ross has been doing over the last week. He's been experimenting a lot with color, pattern, and technique and has created some really beautiful stuff, but my photography skills are not up to par. I've taken the same series of each butterfly, and while some of them are close to good, none of them are excellent. Here's what I've got so far:  

I'm calling this one "Butterfly A" because I'm creative like that.

 Now we have Butterfly B, which is my personal favorite, even though (or maybe because!) Ross likes it least. I think it's perfect for my niece's room.

 Butterfly C:

And last but not least, Butterfly D. (Side Note: Blogger, why are you so crappy with formatting pictures? I would have loved to have each set laid out horizontally, but that's not even close to an option, and it messes up all my text! Argh).

So now the question is, do I put these up on the Etsy site? Or wait until I figure out my photography some more? I found our old Panasonic Lumix camera, which took some nice pictures, but what I didn't find was the cord that lets me download those pictures onto a computer. So for the time being, I'm using my iPhone, which isn't bad, but isn't great either. It did take this picture today, though, so that's not too shabby (if you like creepy clowns who hang out at playgrounds and check their email while riding unicycles)

Boat and Picture Day

I took a boat to work this morning! It's not the first time I've done that, but it is the first time that I noticed something about myself on these "boat days."

When I take the SF Bay Ferry to work, I also take pictures. Lots of pictures. And I think they're actually pretty neat. I've got no formal photography training, and I probably use my phone's photo editing apps way too much (I like snapseed and Camera Awesome, both of which I think are getting discontinued soon, because of course they are), but I think some of my photos would actually make pretty cool artwork. Get nice prints made, glitter or mod-podge them up a bit, mount them to a canvas, and they could be pretty cool! Here's a little sampling: 

 This is the Ferry Building in San Francisco. Really, a damn cool thing to arrive to.

 Trees, sun and fog...I tend to be drawn to this kind of thing

 More trees and sun (and a little fog). There's something about the way the sun makes these lines through the photo, and the way the trees become like silhouettes...just shadows almost.

Trees and very misty fog (not much sun). I liked this one more for the shape...like giant maple leaves, or Christmas trees that ate too much.

 So these things! They're at the Port of Oakland, and rumor has it that George Lucas based his "AT-ATs" on these guys, and they're totally reminiscent of them. Every time I go past them, either driving my car or on the ferry, I'm reminded of giant animal-like machine fighters. The kiddo calls them "camoos", which I think means camels, but I readily admit I don't know all of his words.

 Tilt-shift San Francisco and Coit Tower just after sunrise. Such pretty colors...I hardly even edited the colors at all, I don't think!

And finally a cool ass window deal from on of my favorite bars - the Wild Side West. This place, on Cortland in the Bernal Heights neighborhood of SF, is too cool. The backyard is this mashup of kitschy decoration, bird feeders, repurposed toilets and your adorable grandma's backyard. I take lots of pictures here actually. 

So yeah! I'm thinking about maybe throwing up a few prints on the Etsy store, and see what happens...they could totally be legit pieces of home decor!