324 Days until 40

I don't think of myself or even pretend to be an artist...I dabble.  Over the years, I have taken a class or 2  but have never really created on a regular basis.  I have done some drawings, clay sculptures, made jewelry, digital art and some collages over the years...but I have never  done enough of anything to get really good at any of them.

This afternoon I found some free time and I did create something.  It is an altered art piece...some collage, journaling, painting all in one.  It was fun sitting down and just letting an idea form on the paper with no real plan .  I think it turned out OK...I might go back in a few days and add some details to it.  There are a few other ideas floating in my head, so I might do a few more pages later this week.

*** On a side note...I know it has been several weeks since I have posted on my blog.  I promised myself that I would post a thought and or picture everyday...I am obviously a slacker.  Get over it!

357 days until 40

Punctuation.  Did you know that there are 14 punctuation marks?  In no particular order, there are:

.     Period
?    Question mark
!     Exclamation point
,     Comma
;     Semi-colon
:     Colon
'     Apostrophe
-     Dash
-     Hyphen (not to be confused with a dash)
( )   Parentheses
[ ]   Brackets
" "  Quotation  marks
/     Slash

and my personal favorite...

...    Ellipsis

Is that odd...to have a favorite punctuation mark?  If you look thru anything I type, email, blog, jibber-jabber...you will see that I use them a lot.  Probably too much.  But I don't care!  I have to even try not to use them, as I would use them in almost every sentence.  Yep...that's pretty odd.

There are several ways to use them, and I am sure, there are many "rules" and I won't even claim to know them all.  They can let the reader finish the thought or come to their our conclusion, if used at the end of a sentence.   Ellipsis can also be used to omit information.

Or, they way I use them, is for a pause in the thought or sentence.  The pause can be for dramatic effect or just a pause.

359 days to 40

I want to be a better photographer.  Not necessarily to get paid to take pictures... although that would be cool.  But just to improve my skills and technique.  I can admit it... for the most part, I use the Auto function on my camera.  I just don't know enough about the technical doo-dads, even though I have taken a class, to know what I am doing.  So I have this great expensive camera... and I treat it like a point and shoot.  This is something I MUST work on.  I am pretty good about taking photos most days, but I need to take better pictures and I need to know what I am doing.  This is my one of my goals for the next year...to be the photo girl, kind of like a super hero!

*** side note - I wrote this blog on Monday 3/1/10...but I guess I am an idiot and didn't post it until today! ooops.

360 days to 40

Do you remember Holidomes?  They were super Holiday Inn hotels that had a roof over them, so the pool and mini water park, put-put greens, office and everything were inside but it felt like you were outside. I think they were mainly in the north to combat cold weather for vacationers.

Back when I was little, I travelled with my Dad during the summer months.  At the time, it was before Stephanie came along and he was a single parent.  He travelled for his job... so I went along with him on his business trips.  We always had fun, Dad made sure of that.  And on a few occasions we got to stay at a Holidome.  And it was great!  For a kid is was like Mecca.  They had everything under one roof.  We would go to our room and first thing I would grab my bathing suit and hit the pool.  Sometimes we would play put-put golf or ping-pong.  And for some reason I remember loving the vending machines...odd memory. But they were so much fun.

What a great time in life... when an indoor pool and a Moon Pie from a vending machine was the perfect afternoon.

I don't know what happened to Holidomes.  Were they torn down?  Taken over my another hotel chain?  Or are they still in existence?  I can't remember when I saw one last...must be over 30 years.  They should bring them back.

See what I mean...awesome!  

These are pics I found on the web, not my pictures.  I don't think we took any pictures of a Holidome.

361 days to 40

I fly...a lot.  Some months, I fly every week.  Other months, about every other week.  My home airport is the Orlando International Airport, so obviously I go thru there often.  But, somehow I have missed a giant statue of a iguana dressed as a painter - Van Gogh, I think.  I estimate that I have walked by this iguana hundreds of time but I have somehow never noticed him before... and he is hard to miss.  The thing stands over 6 feet tall and is made of gold and very colorful mosaic tiles.  Just goes to show how on autopilot we can be as we go about our daily life.

This "project" of taking pictures everyday - which I have been doing but I haven't posted for 2 days (not a good start) - has really open my eyes to the wonders of every thing we come across daily.  I could have walked by the Van Gogh Iguana for another 5 years as I went thru my autopilot life...but, for now a least, I have my eyes open.

And I got my first grey hair, actually a hair in my eyebrows.  How's that for turning 39.

364 days to 40

So, yesterday was my birthday. Great day, just hung out with my wonderful Husband and dogs, we came back from Key Largo and them watched some Winter Olympics.

Anyhoo...officially on the road to 40, only 364 more days to go!  I remember back when me and my friend Amy were young, maybe 10 or 12 ish, we would figure out what year we would turn 21, 30, 40 etc...  And 40 seemed like such a loooong way away, so long away that I really never thought it would come.  But here I am staring down at 40.

Should be a fun year...at least I will make it fun!

Here I am at the World's Largest Lobster statue (at least I think it is) in Islamorada, FL