the whole earth was brimming with sunshine that morning. she tripped along the clear blue sky pouring liquid blue into her soul.

there have been many posts about make-up today in my blog world so i will share with you my sister's secret. she's addicted to wet and wild's mega plump. it costs $2 and she goes through tubes like a maniac - to quote her, "i love it." so there you have my wild make-up tip. the good thing about not having a job - you save money on make-up. i rarely wear more than powder and mascara these days. yeah - i can hear the excitement of any male readers left out there.

to tell you how very bored i've been, i organized my computer cookbooks and have consolidated them into one. i noticed the following about that

:: though i dislike baking with a passion, there are a very high number of cake recipes in the cookbooks. i love cake - i am intimidated of cakes. it's all so exact and delicate. pies are easier.
:: i have at least five different recipes for shrimp and grits. i only use one. maybe it's time to let go of a couple.
:: i put overly ambitious recipes in the cookbook in hopes that i will be inspired - turns out they make me lazy and bring on unbridled use of cream of mushroom soup. i swear i'm going to make those empanadas from userealbutter one of these days.

i didn't do all of my errands yesterday but i did pick up chinese food. since moving home there has been a serious lack of chinese food in my diet. maybe that is the root cause in so many allergy attacks this year - the lack of eggrolls and steamed dumplings. i will investigate that possibility more.

clothes are washed (not yet folded), i need to pay bills (don't want to) and groceries need to be purchased. boredom has moved into the food area (part of the reason for the cookbook consolidation). did you know that 2% milk is named that because it only has 2% less fat than whole milk and not because it has 2% total fat? yeah, neither did i. now i know why there is such a drastic difference between that and skim milk. boo.

this morning i read a blog and was suddenly transported back to my childhood. something about summer does that to me and i think it's universal. summer is the time screams childhood, isn't it? the memory in particular is sitting on the steps of the front porch with the light off. soft murmurings of voices with the adults sitting in in the kitchen playing cards. running after fireflies and making wishes on dandelions. playing 'mother may i' in the dusky light and swinging until my lungs felt as if they would burst.

last night i saw fireflies as i took out the garbage. this morning i watched a bright red cardinal play among the leaves of the chinaberry tree. he hopped from branch to branch. i swear i heard him laugh, so i laughed with him. he flew way - but, i know he'll be back around. i think maybe i will too...some day...hopefully soon. i miss me.

you know what?

sew buttons...that's what.

in other words - nonsense. it's the friday of a holiday weekend and it's time to be at least pretend happy. i declare that. it's tough sometimes for sure but ... today i

:: discovered some great music, playing it free
:: laughed at some funny twitters from my friends
:: watched a red-headed woodpecker make circles around a tree
:: dreamed of an exotic vacation
:: had a guy friend tell me that i'm beautiful
:: planned the perfect barbeque
:: and enjoyed my roses even though they are in final droop

now i'm going to go shower, get the groceries for monday and think of something else silly, funny and whimsical to do...just because it's may, spring and a holiday weekend.

tranference

as threads of that song run through my head i can see clearly now the rain is gone i'm enjoying the cooler weather (though it won't last long) and the glorious gold light on the lush and wild greens of the back "unclaimed" land.

i got up early to take the puglies to the vet - lizzie has an allergic relation (we think) and it's time for Mo's annual check up. though mo still struggles to be alpha dog when Pete's not around, lizzie has decided that she belongs to me. i guess she missed a girl around the house or is it she knows i'm a sucker for the jedi mind tricks and give treats indiscriminately. anyway - it's quiet today without them around.

i just watched ellen and one of the women playing blindfolded musical chairs shoved a granny off the tuffet. i like that ellen gave the granny a trip to hawaii. that's class (and probably liability but, i'm going to be positive today).

as i type this, i am tranferring all of my photographs [56 gigs] to an external hard drive that holds a terra byte. next i'm going to redo my lightroom so i can organize them better. i like kelby's plan for tagging and it makes sense to me. but at over 4,000 shots i'm thinking i may need to weed out the ones i will never touch again. how do you all handle that? do you keep all of the shots? do you delete all but the ones you like? is it a half and half thing?

my general way is the first run through is delete all that are unusable. then i go back through and try to be critical with them - are they level? composed decently? what is the artistic value of that shot - so on and so forth. even doing that, I typically shoot around 150 shots on any given project and delete about 30-50% of those. that leaves 75 shots times three years now. how did i end up with over 4,000 shots? have i edited that many shots? wow.

memorial say is this weekend - what are you doing to do to celebrate? we're doing the typical southern barbeque around here - ribs, beans, slaw, corn...

french lemonade does not a day make but it doesn't hurt

today i bought a bottle of french lemonade just to get the bottle. i think i'm developing a problem with this glass addiction. but, my brother is such a sweetie he never says much about the piles of doo-dads in my studio/den. he even tolerates the flowers on the kitchen window sill.

the lemonade was good really, a bit tart - just the way i like it. why is it i can remember to buy fresh flowers and good things to cook but i can't remember to buy a new iron? we've needed a new iron for a month or so now but each time i go out, i forget when other shiny new things take my attention (of course there is that whole thing where i hate to iron, but that's not important). it's also like the check i forgot to deposit for ten days or the unemployment i forgot to file last week. *sigh* that was bad.

how is it that i remember silly things like rose kennedy was behind the beautify our highways but can't remember to buy new irons or deposit money? it's like just now i remember the dogs have been outside for 30 minutes - they're probably ready to come in.

and....why is it that i start to feel better with stupid coughs and congestion and then it slams right back? i was never this coughy when i had health insurance. and it's not an infection or anything - it's just allergies and it's spring. so, antihistamines rock.

i did buy this cool air conditioner for my lap top today and i'm loving how it works. no more melted milky ways for me. why didn't think of this before? idiot. if you use a laptop and didn't know about these things...go get one. no more burned legs.

i'm writing this as i watch the season finale of gray's antomy - trying to decide if i can deal with izzie dying or not. it's always a test when someone has cancer on these shows and dies, especially a lingering death. so far i'm holding up. did you know that karev (izzie's husband) was the italian guy in the wedding planner? he makes a better ass on gray's than italian character even though i read somewhere he's really a sweetie totally in love with his wife. maybe i should have watched the fashion show instead. of course bravo thinks the fashion show will distract us from the fact that project runway is moving to lifetime. sorry - sorry bitchy new yorker with crazy hair cannot fill the hole in my heart that formed when tim gunn is not around. and kelly rowland is no heidi. *phffft* (as i typed that sentence i heard bailey crying...not a good sign right?)

oh, i did take some shots today but since i'm totally obsessing on what to enter into a contest on flickr, i can't decide what to show you. so....i'll show you what i did yesterday. of course when i look at these all i can think of is vodka and cranberry juice - which reminds me, i need a drink. don't you?