Art in honor of NATIONAL POLLINATOR WEEK! and a story.

 

 This one is done! Except not signed yet in this photo.

I've been working on my caterpillar triptych a lot the last couple of days and managed to finish this one about an hour ago!

Last night I worked on the little flower buds while watching "The Wedding Singer." I hadn't seen that movie in YEARS and it's such a good one! I was so thrilled to find it on (and they even showed it twice in a row)!

The paintings are also a great distraction from obsessing over house hunting / endless thoughts of decor and my imagination running wild / realizing that packing suuhhh-hucks and I need to just go buy a bunch of packing tape already and stop putting it off (but I hate to leave paintings halfway done for weeks/months on end..........)


 Um...  I guess from that paragraph you can tell how scatterbrained I am at the moment.

So scatterbrained this whole week, in fact, that I missed an allergy-shot appointment on Wednesday so I had to reschedule. They fit me in this morning at 9, and of course I was running late (I was trying to finish up the black on the caterpillar!). I wasn't speeding or going crazy because of running late, just feeling frazzled.

I accidentally went through a left-turn-yield-on-green light, following the car in front of me, not paying as much attention as I should have been- I totally admit. I guess one plus side is it wasn't like I just ran through it in the middle of the green-light cycle, that would probably have been worse. But then again had no one been in front of me, I would probably have paid a lot more attention to what was going on in the intersection. Since I ran through it when it must have *just*changed, the cars across from me hadn't started moving yet. But wouldn't you know it, right in front was a cop who saw me and honked at me and then pulled me over.

I was so embarrassed.

I never do things like that. I HATE when people run red lights, hell, I am all for red-light photo enforcement. I'm sure since I followed the person in front of me, it looked like I was saying "SCREW YOOOUUU!" to the folks across whose light had just changed to green.

So the cop asks me if I know what I did. I responded with "I thought I still had a green arrow.... but I guess I didn't."

"NOOOOO!... you DIDN'T and you almost took off the front of my car!"

Ok... that was an exaggeration because if I had looked up when he honked and seen his car thisclose to me, I may have literally peed in my pants. Instead I looked up and my first reaction was annoyance... not panic.

I get that what I did looked like a dick move, but both cops were standing there by my car and kind of making wise-cracks the whole time. They were really laying in to me, and I deserved it, I know, but it seemed like it was getting to be a bit much. I was on the verge of tears, and stuff like that doesn't make me cry. Why were they treating me like this??

It dawned on me later that maybe... it was because of.... my car. (Is that like pulling the race card? I don't know.)

They saw the obnoxious fluorescent color, tinted windows, and I'm sure assumed I was just some young punk who habitually drives like an @$$hole. All I needed was a big loud muffler. I am pretty sure that they saw the car and formed an opinion instantly and jumped at the chance to rip apart one of those drivers.

I don't blame them. I would love to do the same.

But I still wasn't a fan of feeling judged. Maybe they would have treated me the same if I had been driving a station wagon or minivan. I have my doubts.

I am falling more and more in love...

With house hunting.

With the idea that soon my husband and I will have our first home, a place to truly make ours.

The first place we lived in together was a house we rented from my grandparents, so technically we probably could have done whatever we wanted to it (with permission). It needed tons of love and TLC though, and we chose to save our money for our eventual own place... however far off that was... rather than investing in a house we would move out of soon.


Our first (rented) dwelling... flower bed on the right is incomplete.


We did go crazy with the outside and the landscaping though! :)

 One of the many flower beds we added!
AND Look at all that bamboo!
I want bamboo in every house in which I live.

So we've seen 6 houses together, he's seen a few on his own, and tomorrow we're seeing 4 more.
I know I've mentioned here and there on this blog that we'll be moving, to the Northern Virginia area, to be exact. I had hopes and dreams of returning to Florida, where a bunch of my best friends live, in Jacksonville. After a recent visit, I think I'm okay with moving to the DC area. I prefer to do my running outside and unless I did it at 5am every day... it's just too damn hot in Florida most of the year.

For buying our first home, everything seems to be in our favor right now. According to this article, mortgage rates just hit an all-time low today:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_mortgage_rates;_ylt=ArF9K76K_bL0dWCKQ0hknpis0N

And properties in NoVA are moving fast. If we miss something, another great house pops up right around the corner!

I'm also having a great time scouring the internet for decor ideas, although that may be a little premature. But I can't help it....

Starting with the outside, some of the houses on our "favorites" list have fantastic interiors but the exteriors are just meh. Looks like all they need is a fresh coat of paint though, so even if I have to be stealthy and super sneaky and do it when my husband is away on travel (heh... I'm kidding... sort of) I am dying- DYING!!!- to paint our house yellow. Not bright fluorescent yellow like my car or anything. But a pretty pale yellow with nice white trim... (if I can't live at the beach, I can pretend, right? A cute little beachy looking cottage. In the DC metro area. It's cool.)

One of the contenders....  Imagine this house painted YELLOW!! 

with a total makeover of the yard.
Hardy banana tree, yuccas, ferns, hostas, daylilies, pachysandra, rhododendrons, bee balm, coneflower, sweet bay magnolia tree, bamboo, milkweed .... 

And then some pretty potted plants by the front door. Maybe in terra cotta pots- that never goes out of style. I'm thinking red geraniums, too, since that's what my grandmother always had by her door.

What's funny is while I was bouncing around amongst decorating blogs, I happened to find this one a few minutes ago. Gorgeous. And look.... a beautiful yellow house. Imagine that!
http://deardaisycottage.typepad.com


The last few times I've taken my dog for a walk, we've gone all through one of my favorite little local neighborhoods so I can gawk and gaze and drool over the little tiny gardens and many flower pots that adorn the doorways of the cute rowhouses in Shipoke and I take many mental notes.

Of course I already have about a billion ideas for the landscaping. Last year I missed my gardens so much I wrote a Squidoo lens all about Tropical-Style Gardening in the Mid-Atlantic so I didn't forget all my ideas when I moved!!
http://www.squidoo.com/MidAtlanticTropical

I AM OBSESSED WITH PLANTS.... STOP ME.... OR HOLD ME.... I have over 70 house plants. Help!

The other night I dreamed about a magnolia tree, so I'd like to add one of those. One of those things I always wanted since I was a kid, but never allowed to have? And when my family moved into a house with a HUGE one they immediately knocked it down? :( (in preparation to add on to the house BUT STILL, I was devastated.) Not sure if I'll do a regular one or settle for the Sweet Bay Magnolia that I posted about recently... but I would love to have one.

Ok, I am done rambling for now. Because I could write a whole other post JUST on my ideas for the office/art studio! You bet your ass I already have a folder full of inspirational photos for it!

3rd Down & Forever

How often do you get a chance to see one of your best friends on the news (not for committing a crime) and on the big screen? This weekend I got to do BOTH in the same day!

An artist friend of mine from college premiered his documentary film "3rd Down & Forever" in Jacksonville and I was lucky enough that I could make the trip to Florida to see it! Even though I'm not a football fan by any means, I'm obviously a fan of my friends (and their projects), so after hearing about this film for the last couple of years, I was really excited to see the results of his training and hard work come together.

It's the story of an average guy (an elementary school art teacher) who is determined to become an NFL prospect. Everyone's watched a football game and heard those guys who exclaim, "EVEN I COULD HAVE CAUGHT THAT!!!" and my friend Jason decided to find out, Could an average guy have made that catch?




If the trailer above doesn't work, you can watch it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jglkYl2tp-Y

What he found out is that the NFL players are immensely talented athletes. You have to run at full speed, while being able to look behind you and still go in a relatively straight line, and catch a ball, and anticipate possibly being tackled by some HUGE dudes throughout the entire process. I never really thought about that. Sure if you're just standing with someone in a field throwing a ball around, it's easy to make that catch. Throw in all those other factors and it becomes something else entirely.


The film runs about 30 minutes long and DVDs are only $5 plus shipping. I picked up a few to give to family members who are football fans and remember Jason from when we were in school together.

It would make a great gift for any fan of football, whether they've played before or not. One viewer even commented that she thought it was a highly motivational film to show to high school or college kids. A lot of kids play football thinking they're going to make the NFL and Jason goes into some of the stats in his movie about just how hard it is. (In other words... it's probably good to have a back up plan!)

You can go here for more information or to order one (I highly recommend it!)

http://www.tetlak.com/


Since I am usually painting or something when football is on the TV, I don't pay much attention to it. But after seeing this film, I will look at football players in a whole new way and maybe even pay attention once in a while.

Poop On Taxes

(Poop on the figuring out part. Not the paying. I'm totally cool with paying them.)

I was filling out my expense spreadsheets tonight and as I do so, I always update my annual tax spreadsheet. Then next February or March, everything is right there and organized and ready to be categorized and added up! ...Except that never happens. I sit there in mid-March, staring blankly at the 1040 Schedule-C, probably drooling a little, clicking back and forth between the form and the instructions, trying to translate IRS-speak into non-business-person-dummy-speak, and figure out how the hell I categorized my expenses. My accountant said *generally* as long as you include eeeevvvvvvverrryyyything, the categories themselves aren't that big of a deal.

Still, it seems silly to go through all the trouble and not do it right.

So I zone out looking at the numbers and the various colors (because I color-code all the categories to make them easier to visualize and then add, since I have absolutely no clue how to tell Appleworks, "total this shit up" and I still do it by hand; no not with an abacus but one step up from that). And then it gets to be 2 in the morning and my husband has told me he wants to send the taxes in THE NEXT DAY so I just start plugging in numbers and adding them up so I can get to bed.

And every time I say, Next year will be different. When I have time, I will research exactly what all these categories mean so I can file properly and know exactly where the numbers came from when I look at them the following year.

But do I? Noooooo!!

Tonight became that day! Yay! I decided as I updated my taxes spreadsheet that it would probably be a good idea to go over all the categories NOW, when I have time and when I'm not in a sleep-deprived-stupor.

I think I've got them all straight. I'm not sure if this helps anyone else, but since there are like 4 categories for "supplies" I thought I'd summarize what I found tonight.

On Form 1040 Schedule C (Profit & Loss From Bidness):
Part 2  Expenses
Line 18: Office Expense. So like, office supplies and crap. Tape, staples, pens, whatever. This also includes Postage! Did you know that? Cause it doesn't say on the form. You have to look in the instructions to find it!
Line 22: Supplies (not included in Part 3): Well WTF other kind of supplies are there? Now I have to jump ahead all the way to section 3 and figure out what doesn't fit in there (or in Line 18 as office supplies)? What IS this? According to the instructions, it's "supplies" that you would consume in a year. "Books, professional instruments, equipment" are examples given. But that's confusing because most books or equipment last longer than a year, so you go into depreciation?? I have no idea. Maybe that's why they include the text "not included in part 3" because they don't even know. And they couldn't come out and say, "Uhhh... whatever.. doesn't fit... anywhere else. Put it here. Yeah that sounds good."

Part 3 Cost Of Goods Sold
Line 36: Purchases less cost of items withdrawn for personal use. Geez. So obviously items for personal use don't belong on your taxes, duh, so if you leave out the part of this category written by Captain Obvious, you have... Purchases. Ok, still, what? Through a bunch of internets-super-sleuthing, I found out that this means: Things you buy to sell. I *believe* this refers to something such as a print bag. You aren't doing anything special to it, just slipping your print into it to sell. Same with a frame, or a mat. You're buying the item to technically resell it. If I'm wrong on this please let me know- I'll correct this post so no one makes the same mistake as I'm going to be making ;)
Line 38: Materials and Supplies. Hello, could you be any more vague? Through even more exhaustive research than line 36 I found out this is stuff like materials you use to make a finished product. So if you make your own frames then the wood and stain and whatever hardware you use would be included here. And I suppose the ink and paper you use to produce prints that you're selling would be included here, too. And paint. And canvas. Orrrrr maybe canvas fits into the above category!?

Whatever. As long as you're consistent I guess.

Native Sweetbay Magnolia

I am SO excited! I just accidentally stumbled upon a blog that told me exactly what the tree is that I've been admiring at the park where I've been doing my open-water-swim training:

http://plainfieldtrees.blogspot.com/2008/08/from-tree-hugger-to-bug-hugger.html

The tree is a Sweetbay Magnolia!
(and the blog post above is REALLY interesting and informative and you should totally go read it. It's about native plants and... my favorite... BUGS!!)

There are two of these trees planted near the Pinchot park facilities and they always smell so, sooo good. (Except when the entire park smells like dead decaying flesh.) But the flowers are magnificent and relatively small, compared to the magnolias with which most people are familiar; however, you can absolutely tell it's a member of the magnolia family.

The other really cool thing about this tree is it's a native species of the southeast! That means if I get a yard when we move and get to plant one, which I totally plan to now that I know what it is, I'll be supplying the native insects with food that they can actually use! YAY!

According to the map on Wikipedia, DC seems to be right on the line of where these babies can survive. But I figure if they can survive up here in PA, they can survive down there, too.

I am so excited to start planning a garden again....

Picture from WIkiCommons:
Photo by and (c)2008 Derek Ramsey (Ram-Man) and the Chanticleer Garden.