Home 4 Sale

Big beautiful house for sale. Want pictures? Details? Just ask and I'll send some to you. (Notice how clean the garage is? :) Sorry about the sunshine- House is Heaven Sent!

Techno Gears Marble Mania Extreme

Sean came home from school sick on Thursday and Friday, and I promised him that when he was feeling better, we could put together his marble game. He and Ashton have been begging since Christmas to put it together, but we haven't had the time to spend snapping all 325 pieces into place. Well, yesterday, Abbie-Juice came over to spend some time with the boys, and the 4 of us worked really hard for I won't tell you how many hours, creating this work of art. Or more realistically, they watched asking every minute or so, "Is it ready yet?" Here are the stages of completion of this motorized gear-turning, marble power-lifting, milled, channeled, spinning, shafted, funneled, pendulum-ed Marble Mania-ed entertaining merriment! Here are the three goof-balls watching me from the couch at their leisure.
I got a picture of the manual here- you can see how I have all the pieces pre-counted for each page before I begin construction. Not a lot of details in the instructions, so there was a lot of squinting and counting on my part.
Finally, completion! And the crowd goes wild! I must admit, it was pretty cool watching the marbles go through each of the contraptions, and then up the power lifter to repeat the cycle over and over. Of course, I barely got finished making dinner with Jessica by the time this was back in as many pieces as when I took it out of the box.
And one final photo for you- Kevin decided to grow out his beard, and cut his hair short for an entirely new look. I like it! Different style for him, but it fits. :) And the peacefully sleeping Giada Frittata, the Duchess of Rory on his lap.

Authors and Artists, Part II

I promised another blog post on my weekend conference, and even though it is late, I wanted to post some pictures to share. I was privileged to attend 3 sessions by popular authors Marc Tyler Nobleman, Sharon Draper and illustrator Ane Carla Rovetta. I went to two of Marc's sessions and he shared with us tips for writing/creating comics and book-talked some of his non-fiction children's books. Kind of a funny combination, non-fiction and comics, and he has only illustrated only one of his own books, "Vocabulary Cartoon of the Day," which I'd like to purchase! It has humorous anecdotes of not-so-common words, and a caption to go with it. (Of course, I came home with a list as long as my arm of books I want to buy!) Marc was a really nice guy, and I was able to speak with him several times throughout the conference, and he even autographed a copy of one of his books that was donated to the conference by his publishing company. Here's how that conversation went before the first session, before we had really talked much at all (he was preparing his stuff on stage, and I got a front row seat because I was tired of wearing my glasses and I still wanted to see + I was like 15 minutes early): Me looking at the cover of a book I'd pulled out of my bag, and noticing the author on the cover~ "Oh. This is yours. Would you like to sign your book for me?" Marc~ "Um, I don't know. Would you like me to sign it for you?" How dumb and rude of me was that? It just kind of popped out, and I certainly didn't mean for it to come out that way! So I rephrased my question with a please in it, and then we started talking about all of his books, and how to get published (he told me to just e-mail the publishing companies and tell them I have a non-fiction book on ... I'd like them to read, and they will a lot of times ask to see a manuscript. Pretty cool, huh?

I also got to meet Sharon Draper who has won the Coretta Scott King Award five times for her young adult novels. She is a very enthusiastic speaker, full of confidence and pride in teaching and writing. Her presentation made me want to read all of her books, and order her Ziggy series for the South Valleys Library. They are about a Jamaican boy and his friends as they get into all kinds of trouble and mysterious adventures- and each chapter leaves you hanging so you just have to go immediately to the next one! Those were they types of books that kept me up late reading with a flashlight under the covers (yes, I did actually do that as a kid!). Goosebumps books are like that too, which is why kids like them so much. Here she is, showering her crowd with inspiration:

Ane Carla Rovetta was an AMAZING storyteller, and is quite the naturalist- she told several American Indian tales, but also drew beautiful chalk illustrations while she spoke! I've seen many storytellers, but none of them created anything visible to go with their tapestry of words. I would like to mention here that she is an illustrator for the National Audubon Society, where she illustrates different species of birds in books they publish, and we buy in our libraries! The session I was able to attend with her (after her keynote speech) was on drawing frogs and toads, and telling the differences between the members of the amphibian family. I have always loved color and art, but I never took any art classes in school because I took all the music classes I could fit into my schedule. My grandmother paints, and has sold many many paintings over the years, but I did not inherit her steady hand or her ease of drawing things as they really look. Whenever I create something, it tends to be more abstract, and very colorful. In Ane's class, she gave us step by step instructions on how to draw a frog, and then a toad in colored chalk- draw a rainbow here, a 7 there, and connect it with a C in between and smudge with your finger or the side of your hand, as if she were teaching an elementary class learning their shapes. Then it's EASY to make something look real, when you're given step by step instructions! Here is the frog I drew (I got the mixing colors thing down):
Notice how it is tilted up, like it is preparing to jump? Frogs are much more mobile than toads, and can leap quite far, while their relative can only jump and splat short distances- their legs are more for pushing and crawling than for leaping. My toad isn't quite tilted so far up, and see the circles behind his eye? That's a poison pouch since they aren't so mobile as their close friend the frog:
I want to frame and hang these in the boys' bedroom, but I'm not sure where I can get a frame (for cheap) the size of a large piece of construction paper...

I have more to post, but I think this is going to be all for tonight. Thanks for reading!

Authors and Artists

This weekend I was lucky enough to be able to attend the Nevada Read Week Conference at the North Valleys High School again this year. And again, it was superbly done! I was able to attend sessions given by several popular authors, oral/musical storytellers (fitting since I am taking an oral storytelling class this semester), two science labs, and even an art class! The star of the conference, and the reason I went, was Judy Schachner (pronounced Shatner, like William). She is the great picture book author/illustrator of the Skippyjon Jones books.
I didn't get a great picture of her (it was dark during her keynote speech so I decided not to post that picture of her, but you can visit her website-link above- with a slightly younger photo of her), but I would like to say that she was an exceptionally hilarious speaker. Mostly, that is attributed to her ADD, which she informed us, was diagnosed by a 3rd grader. She thinks on several different levels, all at the same time, and is constantly flittering and fluctuating between several ideas in any given moment. Even though she is a highly nervous person, she leads a very interesting and fulfilling life with her husband, two (now grown) daughters, and many cats. Since I am such a great lover of the feline species, I especially enjoyed the slides Judy shared with us of all of her various cats (most of them Siamese like Skippyjon). The story behind her first Skippyjon Jones books is that her new Siamese kitten (who had ridiculously large ears for his tiny head which made him look like a Chihuahua- and he really did too!) was bounding all over her basement chasing this gigantic bumblebee and making such a ruckus that Judy went screeching from the room only to come find him much later having eaten the bee, and COMPLETELY covered with welts all over his little body. Judy told us that since he had such a little head and loved to sit under the the furnace all the time, his tiny brain dried up and fell out of his ear one day. His favorite occupation was to eat various things around the house, including furniture, bedclothes, and his most favorite- garbage bags. His veterinarian thought he had a tumor once when she brought him in because his little belly was as hard and round as a rock. But it turned out, it was just filled with the various things he found around the house, including (but not limited to) a plastic beaded necklace and water noodles. Then she sadly informed us that at the age of 9, Skippyjon suddenly died of cancer last November. She is convinced it was because of his love of garbage bags.

I was able to attend her workshop on publishing picture books, and she shared with us her seed boxes- hat boxes filled with antiques and little treasures she's collected over the years, and her rough story journals. They were filled with magazine cutouts, stickers, sketches and drawings of all sorts of inspirations to her. They were each a separate work of art, beautifully crowded with pictures of cats and interesting people and family. Immediately after that session ended, I asked her to sign my copy of Skippyjon Jones (I sat in the front row for that purpose, and because I can't see without my glasses). I snuck this shot of her signing- I'm sure that was extremely annoying, but she'll probably never see me again. Sorry Judy! Big moment for me! I also received an autographed copy of one of her newer books, Skippyjon Jones in the Doghouse.

And the finished product:

Well, that's all for tonight- I do have lots more photos and stories to tell. But I should be doing homework right now...

Snow Leopard Tattoo Updates

Yes, I know it's been like 2 months now, but I needed someone to take healed tattoo pictures for me in some good lighting. Here is a close up (albeit, a little peely and hairy!):

The left eye (facing) somehow faded more so than the other one. If you look at the first (slightly bloody) picture, the eyes were a nice vibrant color green. I'm thinking I'm going to need to get a touch up done. And finally, one to put the actual size into perspective with the rest of me.
See? Not TOO huge. :)