When Less Is More

Upstate New York in the Fall

The above color sketch is from a photograph as well as a memory of either Eagle or Paradox Lake, Upstate New York. I was on a foliage tour in late October when many trees had shed their foliage already. Not driving, I had a chance to take more pictures. The reflections in the water with the stone outcrop caught my attention.

What surprises me about the watercolor is that despite least amount of detail or notes for when and where,  I remember the location, driving west on Route 74, it is on the right. 

We went into Schroon Lake before turning around to go east on Route 74 back to Ticonderoga, and back to Vermont. I know on the drive we pass both lakes. I don't recall which lake the scene is from.

The artwork got me to thinking about less is more. Creating art should be relaxing. Yet, many of us, I feel, try so hard to fulfill our ideal artist image that Earth flattens and we fall over the edge. 

Ideal. Not bad to have an ideal image of something. Not good to strive to achieve an ideal when in reality, we are unique, not necessarily an ideal. We might fit a person's ideal image, but that is their opinion. Thinking more, I ponder how to relax and just be myself without struggling.

To relax better. Quiet. No Internet, TV,  phone, music. Just quiet surroundings with normal noises. Then I thought, why not take a day to go offline? Less Internet in order to gain creative control.

The orange nasturtium exercise this week on day 2, I almost forgot to look at it. There is sunshine this morning. I slept well. Now, I have a new plan to add...being offline during daylight hours from sunrise to sunset. This week offline will not be Wednesday because there are PBS shows I like to watch. I have too much to do on Thursday. Friday is busy as well. Ah, maybe trying out a block of hours to start is better, say from 1 PM to 7 PM.

Have you tried a whole day being offline? 

Did you feel more relaxed?

Freezing Over?

In mid February Lake Champlain 

doesn't look to me to be 

freezing over at the Upstate New York 

and Addison County, Vermont border.

Have a good week

A Perspective On America

Route 17 Roadside Vermont
Unplowed winter field in Addison County

 
In the distance are the Green Mountains.

A Google map search for the specific name of that section, is as any search for a topographical map labeling all the mountain features, peaks, ranges, and such is very lacking. As lacking as me, after all these years, for not finding the right map I'm looking for in order to be able to name the Earth features I post photographs of. My bad. I will try to fix that.

I know for sure that horizon is the Green Mountain National Forest. The Green Mountains Presidential Range in Addison County Vermont is in those distant mountains, Mount Abraham 4006 feet, Mt Grant 3623 feet, Mt Cleveland 3482 feet, Mt Roosevelt 3528 feet, and Mt Wilson 3745 feet.  One day I will figure out which peak they are. (Note, there is also a Presidential Range in New Hampshire.)

Until then...folks, that is a part of America you are looking at. 

When you vote, you are protecting that land and all that is in it, including the living inhabitants. I say inhabitants instead of people as a courtesy because I don't know how many genuine not of Earth aliens there are, if any, on our planet. I suspect based on factual reports over decades, they are here or else it is us from another dimension.

Have I been listening to too many weird podcasts? 

Watching too many weird shows? 

Reading UFO reports? 

No, is my answer. 

I'm being realistic. If I sound crazy weird, then just take a look the person under inditement many are supporting as a candidate for President of the United States. Explaining that is far more strange than believing aliens from outer space live on planet Earth.

Seriously folks, think about that.

A Winter Rummage Sale...Woohoo!

A rummage sale in the middle of winter!

Yes, a local huge rummage sale at Saint Peter's Church lured me out and about ... around people.  

The focus going in is to not buy much because I have enough of much. 

First thing at the door, on the check out desk is a covered jewelrly display. And what do I see!? A necklace with 1950s era style design. I was done for! I will make it into a bracelet.

The haul: 4 pants, 2 blouses, 1 dress, 1 skirt, and 1 pair of water shoes.

Every item is not only a garment I can wear now, but ones I like as well. No will lose weight, this will fit me by then or might be my size were purchased. I also did not buy any fool myself into thinking I'm a fitness fantatic by wearing athletic wear. 

I didn't look at every thing because there is so much. I will probably return for a leisurely browse. There are particular fabrics that I look for no matter what the garment. 

Day 54 of Week 8 in February 2024

Have things been looking sideways or up for you?

Is seeing another white winter sky beginning to instill fear?

When is the last time you had a cannoli or a chocolate eclair?

The last poem you memorized?

Bought emory boards?

Asked your socks where they want to go?

Spring is 25 days away

Have Fun Exploring 

A When Was That?

Weekend!

When the Sunshine Is Just Right

Spider Plant & Friends

The plants are moved to the dining table for a  bask in the February morning sunshine. They can see outdoors to be glad they aren't out there on a very windy day. The outside flap for the stove hood vent signals  high winds to me before I even look out the window.

Moving my life around to be in the sunshine would be nice. But, that would take a major move to a much lower latitude. Do you know the latitude you live at?

If you go to forecast.weather.gov (National Weather Service, NWS), and put in your zip code, then you will see a topographical map on the right with the Point Forecast for that station's zip code. Your exact coordinates can be taken by using a compass with that feature. (How far down from the North Pole you are and how far west from the meridian in Greenwich, England.) 

A fun bucket list item is to see what it feels like to be on Earth's  Equator. According to Wikipedia, there are 13 countries that it passes through. The closests to me would be in South America. Interesting though, Hawaii is the American state closests to the Equator at almost 19ºNorth. 

At 44ºNorth, I'm a ways away from the Equator. I haven't even passed through the Equator.

Have you been on the Equator? To Hawaii? South America?

It Is Another Tuesday

Circles 2023
Digital photo

The memory of creating the digital photograph on the left is stored so deep that I can't reach it.

As we get older, feeling worried when we don't remember something can feel very unsettling. Taking the date created, I can go to that folder to see what else I was up to in 2023.

As for today, the sun is shinning. It is cold. Spring is a mere 28 days away. The carnations I bought two weeks ago are just fading. None of the buds opened though. My spider plant looks like it just got home from an all night rave that it wasn't ready to leave. Blogging, again, is on the when to stop radar, blip yes, blip no, blippity blip as it goes. 

Time to read a book.

About Learning Photography

Leaf on Hot Concrete
Digital photo August 2019

What you might notice when going through photo folders of years gone by, are subjects you've photographed a lot, composition quality improvement, and not all cameras take good photos.

Clouds. I have a lot of cloud pictures. Moon. Lots of those pics as well. Plants. Like I'll forget what basil and nasturtiums look like. Autumn. Season favoritism shows. 

You can be engaged in pursuing adjustments in your life when other things you do merge, enter the room, have a sit down on the brain until you figure out why it deserves a seat. Becoming a better photographer deserves a seat in my mind is a no brainer.

Style. Are you a good photographer, candid picture taker or have a lens why not record an image? I think it depends on the moment and what you are looking at. 

I can be all three at the same time. Attitude prevails. What doesn't enter the picture is the effort to improve my skill as a photographer of any style level. Thus, with a depression dip to deal with, I'm now into learning photography. An item on the lists you see on websites for how to get out of a depression surge, is to learn or do something new. 

Below are a couple of links to get you started, if you have the mind to pursue photography improvement.

10 Best Free Online Photography Courses, petalpixel.com, 2024.

Intro to Photography Class, Reddit.com, authored by professional photographer, Alex Buisse.

I wish you much success in having fun with your photography at whatever level of expertise you are comfortable with.

I've feel encouraged to improve my photography skills after watching a fantastic YouTube video by professional photographer, Drew Simms. 

Yellowstone Winter Camping and Wildlife Photography

An Outstanding video

How many ideas can fit in one brain?

 

MIT News, When four is not four, but rather two plus two, MIT neuroscientists redefine the limits of working visual memory (June 2011)

The Magical Mystery Four: How Is Working Memory Capacity Limited and Why? (2010)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The answer: I don't know for sure after Googling the question, but I do believe it is a lot. Why ask such a question? It is like this, I was thinking again.

5 Years

As I'm searching the Internet for recent articles, 2020 - 2024, I realize that my brain is resisting the fun of learning. To better organize the subject, I decide to start with links to articles. Moving along, I begin to read the text. The more I read, the more my brain says...Think of something else We aren't into a high capacity learning experience!  I understand that because I've been in a depression dip. Learning takes a lot of brain power that depression does not relinquish readily or easily.

To simplify. 

Changing my lifestyle is a challenge. Clearing my mind to think smoother and sharper, (a worthy goal) I've been assessing my thinking history. 

I believe we are born curious. I believe, that when I first began breathing air, my first thought is: Where the F%#& am I!? 

I am sure I was terrified. I can't imagine myself as a chilled new born. As it happens, I spent a lot of time by myself wondering about the initial question. When I learned to speak the language, my mother said I talked myself to sleep, and talked myself awake.

She was not a journaling person. There was no computer or tape recorder. Not even a camera happy parent to take many candid pictures of me.

All that learning, all that brain use is in my memory somewhere, for what I don't know. If there are lives lived one after the other, then in this life of mine, not much of the past life information has come forward. What if what I was talking about are things that did transfer to the new me? Did she listen to what I was saying? I guess, yes because she knew I talked. I think we often dismiss a new person's chats because we think of a baby's brain as not developed. It may be more developed that we know or science is as yet, able to measure. 

Training your brain to think better, be healthier is as important, I believe, as exercising the body. 

I noted that as I've been pondering brain health, on my list of foods to add artichoke hearts rise to the top. I haven't had them in years. They are a good brain food.  The brain knows.

Assessing a Blogging Past

Together
Mixed media watercolor & cut paper
2008

Do you remember what you were thinking during each project?

Why you started? What the goal is? Where the idea began?

The year 2008 is 16 years ago. I'd have to look up blog posts to jog my memory for what I was doing back then. This blog began in October 2012, moved over from Poet Whale Studio (2010). The 2 years from 2008 to 2010, I was blogging elsewhere as Cornsilk Moon. I morphed the blog title here a few times before settling to this final name.

It boggles my mind that I've been blogging for 16 years. What has changed? I'm not sure, but I believe I don't write with as much scatter-brainess as I use to. My subjects seem to flow the same. I no longer feel the need to change the blog title. 

For what is the same, venting. I still have to put effort into not posting vents about customer service, politics, something in the news or a personal experience. 

(That may change as the 2024 election nears.)

Buoy, Buoy, Oh Ya, Buoy, Buoy,

Materials:

Save the bottle cap

Empty quart plastic bottles

Clean and remove labels

Paint like lobster buoys

Drill small hole in bottle cap; thread twine through the hole; knot around a tooth pick cut down to fit inside the bottle cap; knot the upper twine to make a holder

Apply a few coats using acrylic paint. Use a long taper candle in a candle holder as a drying stand. Place the bottle upside down over the taper. 

The paint can scrape off easily. Hang the buoy where it will not be banged around. You can also make decorative buoys using cardboard.

Photo: The yellow, white and blue buoy is a milk bottle. It is the first buoy I made. The paint needs sprucing up. The other two are soda bottles. They  are a fun and inexpensive way to add a nautical vibe to the decor. 

Real lobster buoys are painted with the colors of the commercially registered lobster fisherperson. Each state has their own buoy registry.

Bouys are the road signs on the water. All boaters should know what they mean. 

U.S. Coast Guard PDF, U.S. Aids to Navigation Systems PDF