Blimp in a Bottle

Speaking of...

Fort Clatsop Lewis and Clark landing

Long time no see (write, post, whatever). I can't believe it's July already!
And speaking of July, I hope you all had a happy 4th! I hope you had a nice break and got to enjoy some down time, or rousing fun, whichever you prefer!

Speaking of down time, last week we went to visit my folks. Had coffee, went to Fort Clatsop, had some nice dinners, just relaxed and hung out.
It was nice not having to field a bazillion 911 calls about fireworks. They are illegal here (for about 18 years now), except in a couple incorporated areas in the county and the Indian reservations. But people light them off anyway, and all their neighbors seem to have to call them in. [Personally, unless someone has caught something on fire or blown off an appendage, leave 'em alone! It's the 4th for goodness sake!] So it was nice not having to take the calls. I guess a plane landed on the freeway near here, though, so that was probably exciting, but I just really needed a break. And a nice long drive has always been a good break for me!

Speaking of nice drives, on the way there we drove over White Pass, which is always lovely. Plus it takes us by the best burger joint ever: Mrs. Beasley's. It's in Toledo and I think it was put up in the 50's. It's been added on to and remodeled a couple times, but it's still just a little funky diner with awesome burgers and handmade fresh fruit milkshakes. We had such a good burger, we even drove back by on the way home and had another!

source

Speaking of on the way home - we decided to take Chinook pass instead, which apparently I have been over but not since I was a kid. It was lovely. Secret Agent Man was literally giggling about there being so much snow. (We have previously established that he is certifiable when it comes to snow!) SAM took a couple neat pictures:


Once we got home we just relaxed for a day before going back to yuk.
I mean, work.
We ordered pizza. Had a beer. Took the kitties outside for a bit.
Speaking of kitties, they like the new garden. Buster thinks he's a tiger in the jungle or something.




Missy likes it, too. Although, to be more accurate, I think Missy just likes to eat the new garden. She likes the tall grass we planted. We still have some work to do, but my wrist is still bunged up so it's on hold for a bit. I'm sure it will get better just in time for the 100 degree weather we get in summer!

Speaking of my stupid wrist (sprain and torn ligaments) it's has hampered my drawing a lot. (I knew I should have learned to draw left-handed!) But I have been slowly working on some new stuff. I am working on the new logo/business card project for Crooked Stamper. Here's a sneak peak:



And I have some new little guys I'm slowly working on as well, based on various "fears". My intention is to have a series of them and then hopefully make some little stuffed versions to go along with them. We'll see...my ambitions usually outweigh my realities! But here's a couple of them:

fear of spiders

fear of broken hearts

Now that I'm back in the groove, I will be making the rounds again to visit you all in Blogland. Hope this find you well and that you are enjoying your summer!

seaside weddings

Thought I'd share this beautiful Etsy treasury from EatsDessertFirst.
Seaside Weddings

IQ Test

So this past week I had a right nice visit with the folks at their "beach place" (I like to call it that because it sounds swanky, but actually it's where they live all the time. It's nothing fancy, just a nice quiet, small place on the Washington coast. It rains a lot but I just love the sound of the ocean and everything, including the beach, is within walking distance. I never sleep so well as when I'm there.)

Anyway...while I was there my dad gave me this IQ test. I thought it was pretty cute, so I'm passing it on - with pictures. (I'm sure it's been around a while, but it's the first time I heard it, so there!)

The answers are at the bottom of each picture. Don't cheat! I will know.
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1. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?







The correct answer is: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and close the door.
This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way and whether you can think outside the box. Or the refrigerator, as it were.



2. How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?







Did you say, Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant, and close the refrigerator? Wrong! Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door.
This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your previous actions.



3. The Lion King is hosting an animal conference. All the animals attend .... Except one.
Which animal does not attend?







Correct Answer: The Elephant. The elephant is in the refrigerator. You just put him in there. This tests your memory.





Okay, even if you did not answer the first three questions correctly, you still have one more chance to show your true abilities.


4. There is a river you must cross but it is used by crocodiles, and you do not have a boat. How do you manage it?







Correct Answer: You jump into the river and swim across. Have you not been listening? All the crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting. Sheesh.
This tests whether you learn quickly from your mistakes.

According to Anderson Consulting Worldwide, around 90% of the "professionals" they tested got all the questions wrong, but many preschoolers got several correct answers. Anderson Consulting says this conclusively proves the theory that most professionals do not have the brains of a four-year-old.

Now go give this test to your kids and see how smart (or smart-ass) they are!

Undertow

Nothin' new to share because I'm working on custom stuff right now, so I thought I'd post some old favorites of mine. It's summer, and beach time, and these seemed to fit.
For those who are interested, these were done in Corel Painter.

Just So's Ya Knows

...for all my thousands hundreds dozens er, few readers out there, I am on a temporary schedule change for the week so I don't know exactly when or what I'm going to be posting for a bit. But hopefully by the end of the week I will have some new artwork, or maybe (hey Janie!) some pendants made up to post.
In the meantime -
- another neat-o beach picture from my dad!

"Reality" Shows

I often wonder at these so-called "reality" shows, very few of which I will watch, with the exception of The Amazing Race from time to time. Hubs and I keep saying we could do that if we could lose 50 lbs and manage the time off from work...which all comes down to a big "yah, right." Oh well, we can dream.

Anyway, usually I think that the shows are heavily edited to make people look their worst. And/or the people have been told to be on their worst behavior, to scream and yell and throw things at every possible opportunity. Or cry. Or get drunk. Or whatever.

So I don't really watch reality shows. (Um. Except "Rock of Love" sometimes, guilty pleasure kind of thing, because I just can't believe that a bunch of women can/would act that way on TV! Must be all the silicone leaking into their brains. But I gotta tell ya, even if I was a siliconed hoochey mama, I wouldn't go anywhere near Brett Michaels after seeing him with these skanks! )

A-N-Y-W-A-Y...back to my original track here.
I found out a dear old friend of mine from high school was on Wife Swap this past Friday. I had to work so I recorded it and watched it last night with the Hubs.
I thought it was more odd than anything. One woman was portrayed as being a total flake, the other as a total control freak. But if you watch carefully you will see that Flake has a heart the size of Texas and made some really good points to the kids and dad of the other family and was really trying to make them see that they needed to spend more time on the kids and not just money.
And Control Freak has a really good sense of humor she may not show very often - I mean, this martial arts mom dressed up in, basically, drag to go sing to a bunch of old people and was laughing about it. Plus she seemed genuinely concerned about them being so far in debt.

I feel bad that both families were portrayed so negatively. It's gotta hurt. They are obviously from very different worlds, but there was really nothing inherently wrong with either of them. I wouldn't choose to live like either one of them, but that's just not my "reality". Anyway, I hope they both managed to take away something constructive. I hope Jackie learns to keep her house clean and I hope that Myra learns to relax a little with her kids. I suspect, however, that for it do any real good, they would have to spend no less than 6 months in each others houses. But it sounds like maybe Phil now has a job (good) and Charles finally got to spend a little quality time with his kids for a change (even better).
And the Pirate party was really cool.


This picture has nothin' to do with nothin' but I like it. Dad took it at the beach by their house in December when the tide was high. Of course, I had to go and mess with it... :)

Cold, Wet & Windy

My folks live almost as far south and west as you can get in Washington state, about 1 mile from the beach on the Long Beach peninsula. They walk to the beach a lot and my dad takes lots of pictures to send me.
And even when it's cold, wet and windy, you know what? It's still the beach and it's still pretty.