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i swear they're best buds!
(you ask for more, i give you more....)

glory shots

yup, we live here. many a city-ite make a pilgrimage up here to The Shire each fall to see 'the colors'-- and we get to enjoy it for free! Took the pups on a nice afternoon hike on recently discovered (as in, I found it today!) Nature Conservancy land in Stockbridge-- it was gorgeous, if a little odd because you could hear the highway. It was really warm and sunny and they loved splashing in a little brook/waterfall. I was a little worried to be out there alone with them because the trail wasn't marked and pretty much covered with leaves, but we made it home safe and sound, and my reward is two tuckered out pups. (we are taking care of my mom's puppy for the week while she's away-- he's a terror but super cute so we have to love him!)
[and yes, i was driving while i took those above. it's one of my hobbies, steering while photographing. the one below is from our back yard]

history of photography

Been working hard hard hard on school work-- just finished a group project on the History of Phtography... click here to see it! I did the Historical Examples slideshow (collected the images, but no, i don't know how to make a flash slideshow, i'm not that cool...yet!) and edited all the text and helped design the layout/flow of the site.
(Pepper, by Edward Weston 1930)

was fun to learn how to collaborate long-distance with 4 other people flung around the country-- a great learning experience for sure. i think it came out pretty nice.

Fall-ilicious

Indulge me

I just can't help it. I'm so enamored. sorry if this is getting old, but it's my life. well, it's the part of my life I can't help but love-- muddy dog paws and smiling puppies. they're my FAVORITE.

homework

here's a few of the (VERY) random things keeping me busy lately. they're some of what I've done so far for that MFA in graphic design program I'm doing online. they all have specific assignments behind them but I'm not going to get into that. not quite what i might have created without the assignments, but successful execution of those there assignments, nonetheless. :>

yup. that's me. i'm an ALIEN, ok? didn't you know?

front door color

DSCF2285.JPG, originally uploaded by Crafty Maven.

hard to get a good pic without a dog in it, oh well.

he's getting big

DSCF2305.JPG, originally uploaded by Crafty Maven.

ok maybe he's more like 4 and a HALF months old. almost as tall as Happy. he's gonna be a bigun.

best friends

DSCF2306.JPG, originally uploaded by Crafty Maven.

HappyDog and Mickey (my mom's 4 month-old aussie) are such BFF. so cute. they like to play directly upon that dog bed-- which is barely big enough for both of them-- pretty funny.

sneak peek

i'm such a dorky proud doggie owner. but ISN'T SHE CUTE??? she's smiling at you.

so here are a few pics of the work i've been doing around the house. this display is far from done, mostly i used screws that were already up and just trying things-- but it's coming together.
\
(my little world-- dog, computer, couch, phone, snacks-- what more do you need?)

mums-- must be fall!

AND my mom came over yesterday and helped me finally rearrange the living room, which is the first room you see when you come into the house and has been somewhat neglected for the past, um, forever. But now i'm really happy with it for the first time ever. and someday we'll get rid of that horrid light fixture in the middle of the ceiling, oh, and the hand-me-down furniture... someday. (ooh ooh-- check out the super fancy Turkish Rug made my Mehmet Gurgic with natural dyes--- i'm a lucky girl!)


fabulous wall stickers from Fuchsia Home-- how wonderful! they fabulously match my Tord Boontje lamp-- yay!

one of today's horoscopes, yup.

NumeroScope - Today, September 11, 2007 You are coming into a less active period now. Indeed, you are letting yourself go with the flow and will be starting a new career as a beginner, Laurie. You want the idle life, relaxation, escape and running away from responsibilities! Concretely, you have the impression of having let go of things and this doesn't bother you a bit! But you have a desire for knowledge and an exacerbated curiosity which should allow you to keep your head above water. Your health is good, you eat well and have a balanced diet...

i suppose

i'm good at procrastinating.



i keep having this feeling that i'm forgetting something. i keep having it, like once a week. what am i forgetting? i'm not doing anyting important enough to forget! laundry? dishes? garden? homework? the dog reminds me to walk her, so it's not that. i was going to paint the front door this weekend (red/orange!!) but it's tooo humid to do that. i wanted to cook today. but it's only 5, i will wait a few hours or at least one for that. what is it? was it to tell you you are awesome? maybe. you are. whoever you are. as cupcakeshow says, 'i'm glad you're here, too. i love your shoes!'

hehe.

the tails of summer

HappyDog seems to not want to test the fence, so it should still be working even if it's off--so she can be outside even tho we don't want to since it's hot and rainy and cloudy and muggy! Below are a few more shots from the last few days, when it was hot and summery-- yay september!

Lightning

we came home yesterday to hear some sort of beeping... was it coming from the car? from the house? from a neighbor's? no... from our garage. from our new electric dog fence transmitter. oh bother. it wouldn't stop beeping, so we turned it off. haven't heard back from the installer, but HappyDog (AKA doggie#1) seems to be staying in without it-- she hasn't tested it in days.... so we'll just wait and see. but yes, we think it got hit by lightning. Hubby was here when it happened, said he thought something got hit near our house, and he smelled 'burnt toast' outside, then we discovered this:

DSCF2031.JPG, originally uploaded by Crafty Maven.

a flattened grass, which is usually standing tall, at about 5 feet high at the bottom of our hill. the fence wire runs right behind it, so maybe that was where it hit? so odd tho cuz it's supposed to be lightning protected and def. not the tallest thing in the lot!!!

Happy the happiest Dog

DSCF1989.JPG, originally uploaded by Crafty Maven.

designy

(no, not my design...but oops i don't remember where i found it. cool tho, eh?)

"Graphic design is complex combinations of words and pictures, numbers and charts, photographs and illustrations that, in order to succeed, demands the clear thinking of a particularly thoughtful individual who can orchestrate these elements so they all add up to something distinctive, or useful, or playful, or surprising, or subversive or somehow memorable.

Graphic design is a popular art and a practical art, an applied art and an ancient art. Simply put, it is the art of visualizing ideas."

- Jessica Helfand

started my online classes at the Academy of Art University today. I think it will be fun. and challenging. and boring/crazy. and inspiring. i had to remind myself a few times that it's ok if it's overwhelming, because it's been 4 YEARS since i was really in school. sure i've taken lots of classes from the time i graduated (illustrator, principles of design, watercolor, collage, mixed media, jewelery, basket-making, bookmaking, printmaking (sorta), etc.-- have done a lot of learning, but it hasn't 'mattered' in the way this does. i keep saying i might not pursue the degree itself, but what's the point really if i don't? to learn. so i better actually absorb some of this!! i think i will. the manifestation of this knowledge is in words tho, it's in the images and objects i create... so we'll see how that goes.

TPB - J-ROC Kitty Turntables (Deleted Scene)

i love canada.

"You better watch your sassy craft mouth, missy! "

i want this:
is coveting something but not really being willing to create it myself a bad thing? no i didn't think so either.

went with myHubby to 'the ten' last night. what a crazy movie. fun and crazy. it was my pick, so i had to love it. what i didn't particularly love was the rest of the audience. except one other 20's-ish woman, we were byFAR the youngest people in the audience, by like 40 years. no joke. It was at this little indie/2nd run cinema, which happens to be in our local natural history museum. which is sort of odd, and the members all get into the movies for free or cheap i think, so that's why the audience was full of grandmas. and great-grandmas. what a trip. at first i thought it was really funny, and then it was sort of just embarrassing and painful. like when rob cordry is talking about a**-raping his fellow inmate with a wistful look in his eyes. painful. sorry grandma, i didn't know it was gonna be like this. what were these people thinking?

to make it all even worse, the people behind us kept repeating the lines that were funny, and then saying 'what did he say' in an old-person raspy voice to their companions when they didn't hear it and the companion would repeat 'he said he's the 'vaginaaaa man'' 'oh my!' and that was sort of, well, distracting.

how many letters of complaint will they get? maybe i should write a letter of support. because i am one of those people hiding under a rock who misses movies like this when they're out in regular theatres and find them when the come to the museum theatre. and i like that. tho if grandma hadn't gone we'd have been pretty lonely in that theatre. which maybe wouldn't be a bad thing?

spoke too soon

it's hot. hothothot. what a crazy weather year we're experiencing. not so much fall, as August. we all forgot, as it was like 60 degrees, but now it's 87 and hot. so i'm sitting in the fan's gust and loving it. have a puppy at my feet and a dog across the room and it's so good.

finished the process of finaincial aid and home equity loan today-- what a circus. they really don't make any of it easy. but it's official, i'm 'going back to school'-- only part time to start, but someday maybe i'll be a professional designer of beautiful things, not just an ametueur. yeah.

i made these:so that's fun. Mollie designed them for her wedding, and she and her mom helped me make them-- i think they came out really cute-- they were the centerpieces for her gorgeous wedding in Tyringham. fun fun! My mom designed and arranged these gorgeous accent flowers with her friends:

that's the Tyringham Valley, just over the hill from our house. I suppose we live, therefore, on the other side of that hill-- kinda to the right, though.

what a great place! it was in an old barn with this giant chandelier-- loved it! dinner was under the tent and it was just warm enough to be out there with a sweater.


and then there were the boys. My hubby (left) got into some thumb wrestling with brotherThom... tho i guess i started it with brotherBrian first. then they got into some wrastlin' in the parking lot and later at out house. i know they enjoyed it...but hubby left with a bite mark on his shoulder. eek!

well well

it's almost fall here. everyone agrees that it feels like fall since it's cool and sort of dark, but the trees are still green and the flowers are still bloomin', which is nice. Here are some of mine, from my *new* garden:




also, our house is now green! which is more than exciting. we will be putting our shutters back up and they will be orangey-red and i'm so thrilled! i'm also planning to paint some of the details on the porch the same color, and maybe add another color. just cuz i'm crazee.
in other news, doggie#2 went home, but then had to come back. doggie#2 is not back with us, but back in foster care which is so sad, but i guess she's doing ok. we'll be visiting with her soon, and we'll see how that goes. It's sad to see a doggie who loves her family, but her family is not capable of taking care of her. so sad.