I AM still here!

...in case anyone wondered, lol! 

Let's see what all there is to blog about: a new kitten (that makes three dogs and three cats now- yes, we may be crazy!); a weekend road trip to Albuquerque and Santa Fe (we went to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta! I took well over 1000 photos- yikes!); growing job dissatisfaction over the last 6 months or so and a new job that started last Monday (yay!!); getting back into bird watching, which I haven't really done since college (1000s of photos again, of course!); also some crafting and scrapping in there, but not as much as I'd like...

I'll be back with some photos and more posts, but I do have to get up early still for the new job, so even though I have writer's inspiration now, I can't follow up. (isn't that the way it always seems to happen with inspiration?!? darn it!!)

But sooner than last time I posted, for sure- I promise!! :)

languishing in DRAFT status...

I am still here, but my blog has been sadly neglected over the course of the summer. Not sure how that happens, other than sometimes my 'introvertedness' gets the best of me... I can only focus on so many things at once, and over the summer, my blog was the thing at the bottom of the list. But no more! 

I originally wrote this post originally back in May, but never hit the 'publish' button, so when you read it, keep that in mind... it's been more than a few weeks! 

A few weeks ago, I spent some time at a pretty fun estate sale. The person had an actual 'library' in their house- a small room (well, really a spare bedroom) with one whole wall of bookshelves chock-full of books. They were even separated into sections by subject matter! I didn’t really need any fiction books, but I did find a few things I wanted: a copy of Roger Tory Peterson’s Field Guide to Western Birds (finally- yay!), a very nice 2002 calendar, and a paperback museum exhibition catalog from the late 1980s. Why would I want these things? Well, the bird book is obvious; the other two, not so much... unless you happen to be into collage and art journaling! (or unless you wanted to know what day of the week something happened, back in 2002, I guess- lol!) 

Anyway, the calendar and the museum exhibition catalog didn't stay the way they were for long- here's a few selected pages of a 'just for fun' visual journal that I started:

papers include: scrapbooking, magazine, handmade
paper (textured) and an image from the internet.

Most of the pages are strictly paper, glue, and tape. No painting, no fancy stuff- just the basics (well, my basics, anyway). It was kinda nice to just glue things down with no real rhyme or reason other than I liked them together. Even if they didn't really 'go' together to 'mean' anything. (Tom asks me about that every once in a while when I show him a journal page, "but what does it mean?" "What are you trying to say with this page?" Honestly, sometimes the answer to those questions is, really, 'Nothing.' Other than my love of pretty paper, glue, and pictures. Sometimes that's all I need!)

magazine and book images, wrapping paper, hand-painted and stamped,
scrapbook paper, clip-art butterfly from the internet.

scrapbooking paper (inside the glassine envelope),
rub-on (on the envelope), decorative paper tape and 
an Alice in Wonderland themed playing card.

 The photo above gives you a good idea what the calendar looks like- it's a really nice heavyweight paper, and the paintings are very pretty, if you're into the cliffs of Dover, that is. I decided I wouldn't orient the whole book  either landscape or portrait-- just whichever I felt like for each individual page.

a close-up look at the glassine envelope + rub-ons...
I like how you can see a bit of the patterned paper inside. 

Another page, waiting for paper and glue

So, there was more to 'what did I do with my summer vacation' than just this journal. Let's see... We went to the town July 4th celebration, we really did go on vacation (for a week, back to the Midwest to visit family), I did a lot of estate saling and thrifting (even on vacation, lol!), and in addition to this calendar journal, I worked in some (two? three?) of my other journals. Oh, and I bought a Smash journal, and took a class and made another journal... no scrapbook pages, but I guess right now it's 'art journaling season' for me! 

I have at least a few hundred photos on my computer waiting to be edited, and tons of things to take photos of, too... (oh, hey! While we were on vacation we toured reproductions of the ships Nina and Pinta! On the Mississippi River, no less! I totally need to post those pics, for sure!!) I guess I have some photo-editing, and some photo-taking, to do!! 

no butterflies in this post...

...because there are a lot of other things I took photos of at the Botanical Gardens, too. I tried out my new camera and lenses while we were there, and took a ton of pictures. I took about 200 photos in just a few hours! Of course, not very many of them turned out, but still... there's no way I could show the good ones all in one post. So, this post is selected photos of animals, minus the butterflies- I'll post them separately. 

(and a reminder: click on any photo to enlarge it for a closer look.)

well, all animals except for the Chihuly glass sculptures at the entrance. I had to include a photo of those! We missed the special Chihuly exhibit when it was here in 2008, but apparently these three sculptures are now a permanent installation at the garden. (and I just Googled and found out that there will be another Chihuly exhibit in the Garden, starting in November 2013- yay!) 

there is an animal in this picture, if you look closely. There's a dove balanced on top of this odd-looking plant, which is a boojum tree (a succulent related to the ocotillo). 'A remarkable looking plant, often compared to an upside-down parsnip, it naturally occurs only in Baja California and in a restricted area of Sonora, Mexico. Long-lived plants, some are thought to have lived over 500 years.' (this info was taken from the Desert Botanical Garden's website.) They are 'summer-dormant,' which means they lose their leaves during the summer, but they bloom  during this time. They're really strange looking plants, but somewhat compelling at the same time (and they're kind of expensive to buy, too; we've seen small ones at the nursery, in pots).

there's a lot to look at in the Botanical Gardens, but I didn't forget to look up into the trees! Of course, it helped that I heard this hummingbird chattering away... for a tiny little bird, they have a really large voice.

We were just walking down a trail, happened to look off to the left, and saw this guy having a snack just a few feet off the trail!! He didn't seem to mind us at all- just kept munching away. 

I caught him mid-chew in this photo... lol! A little farther down the same trail, we happened on some bathers--

a couple Gambel's quail, taking dust baths underneath the trees. They were a bit difficult to see at first, till we saw the dust flying!

this one was very energetic!!

I've only just started figuring out how this camera works, so right now I'm still using the 'full auto' setting, which lets the camera do the choosing-- but I really like how it works so far!

this fellow was quite industrious, but I managed to get a couple decent photos of him while he was working on making his nesting cavity in this Saguaro cactus.

it looks like making a nesting hole is messy work.

here's a closer look at the dove on top of the boojum tree.

the dove wasn't alone on the boojum tree; farther down, I saw this bird, presumably keeping an eye on his nest. (see photo below)

this plant actually is full of stickers-- smart bird!! The nest looks pretty safe to me. I don't think it's a cactus wren (they would be more brown-and-white spotted) but I can't remember what the poster at the garden said about bird species, and my Google skills are failing me. I really do need that bird book! Wait, I think I remembered it! I believe it's a 'curve-billed thrasher.' (still need the bird book, just to be safe.)

as we walked back toward the entrance, we happened to hear this fellow from up overhead- he was roosting up in the shade of a tree. I managed to get a couple good photos of him, although it was from a bit of an awkward angle. As we left the garden, we heard one more strange 'clacking' noise... I was looking at some plant or another, and said to Tom, 'I wonder what's making that noise?' He said he saw what it was, and told me to come look-- when I did, I was really excited to see this guy:

Although they don't look much like the Looney Tunes character, this is a desert roadrunner! Before this, I've only ever seen one from pretty far away (along the road, lol). I had no idea they could be up in trees, but this one was just hanging out-- the sidewalk went over a wash, which meant we were pretty much at eye-level with him as we walked past. He was quite noisy, too-- the clacking sound came from him banging his beak together. I got a few so-so pictures of him, then switched to the longer camera lens (he was obliging enough to stay put) and got a few nicer close-ups, like this one:

I had no idea they have those orange and blue patches behind their eyes! I don't know much of anything about them at all, I guess, except that they're chased by coyotes in cartoons. This photo really emphasizes the fact that birds' ancestors are reptiles, though, doesn't it?? He's 'interesting' looking, but not exactly handsome. Still really cool, though, that he sat there and let us take pictures of him!!

I have more photo-editing to do, and then I'll post pictures of the butterflies. And also some plants, too.

breakfast at the hotel

Early Saturday morning at the hotel, I had to get something (I don't even remember what) out of my car. When I went outside, I decided I had to go back inside and get my camera, so I could get a shot of this (click on the photos to enlarge them):

see him?? look close at the top of the fountain...

here he is closer-- after doing some Googling, I think it might be

a 'sharp-shinned hawk.' (maybe?? I really need to get a new bird book.) 

perhaps he was looking to have his breakfast at the fountain? 

I got too close to him, though, and scared him off. 

It was a long weekend, with way too little sleep, but it was a lot of fun. I might not have gotten much accomplished, but I met some really nice people, and shared lots of interesting stories. That's one of the great things about scrapbooking- it's all about preserving and sharing your stories and memories!

I got all my stuff back home on Sunday, and even unpacked it all already!! Everything is back in its place up in my craft room; now I just need to finish up the layouts I made while I was there. National Scrapbooking Day is this Saturday, so I think Saturday and Sunday might be scrapbooking days for me.  (after a trip to the Botanical Gardens Butterfly Exhibit on Saturday- more photo ops to practice using my new camera!)  And, I might even be ambitious and start a few more projects- there's lots of layout ideas rattling around up in my head.

I'll make sure to post pics of the layouts when I have them completely done! (or at least post what I have done at the end of the weekend, lol!)