This Summer

Well, I haven't posted anything in a while, so I thought I'd just write a thing or two about what I've been doing lately. I have this nagging feeling that I need to hold my blogging claim down.

Hanging out in the woods . . .It makes me feel all Pathfinder-y. :-)

...Writing a lot. Although not in the picturesque manner depicted below. It's more like this:

Sit at the computer. Get distracted because I left the French dictionary on my desk open. (Who knew that 'être perdus' means 'get lost' in French? C'mon, that's useful knowledge right there. You never know when you may get harassed by some confused French tourist).

Settle down to write again...hear suspicious activity in the hallway...leap up to help my sleepwalking brother to the bathroom before anything unsanitary happens...sit down to write again, wondering how I can use the previous experience to help me feel what I'm writing better...start humming and thinking about what I'm going to wear tomorrow--and then rattle off ten pages of what is now probably watered-down, pulp-fiction-writer-on-a-bad-day (the remnants of my creativity). Then I realise it's one o'clock. [Who reset my clock?!?! Who reset all the clocks?!?!] Yeah. And then I go to bed.

I just sort posed that picture because I thought it looked so pretty and romantic. I'm sure writers in Oz have set-ups like that, anyways.

I'm assuming that since I write for pleasure (or at least, that's what I tell myself), people who write as a job have it really rough. Gosh, they might actually have to write straight through twenty minutes, without stopping once to play a game of thought-provoking solitaire!

So, back on topic:

Sewing...this is something I'm making for my sister's Civil War doll. Actually I've done a lot more to it since this picture was taken. I've some other projects to, all of which I had honest intentions of posting about. I'm sure I will. . . soon . . .

. . .Getting very excited about two movies: Where the Wild Things Are;

and Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. I've watched both movie trailers about five times.

I've also been waiting for the Holmes movie for well over a year now, which does a lot to increase the suspense and make one prepared to be happy with anything. (By anything I mean Mr. Downey). Anyways, I don't want anything for Christmas except tickets to see the Holmes film! And I really want to take my little brother Josiah to see Wild Things--it's his favorite book ever. I think I've probably read it at least sixty times in the past month. I can actually recite the whole book in its entirety.

Looking at mushrooms, and being prevented from eating them by my mother...

Watching airplanes take off and land, which was surprisingly fun--every time they go down that runway, you think: it's impossible. How can something like that lift off the ground and fly? But it always does. ;-D (Kudos to the Wright brothers).

Also, I've watched Into the West. Wonderful series! Very realistic and historically accurate, as far as I could tell. Of course I have a thing or two to say about their erratic character follow-up. Advice to Steven Spielberg: if you're going to put your name on something, make sure their plot development is flawless! Really, we've come to expect better from you!

But other than that, it was wonderful. ;-)

And also, I'm reading Jane Austen and vintage science fiction simultaneously; an activity I highly recommend to everybody.

So, there you have it.

Shortcut to Mushrooms

That stuff that looks like foam is actually part of the mushroom's root system, and it's perfectly solid--actually, it's probably firmer than the rest of the mushroom. It's normally buried under the damp leaves, but I dug it out to take a look. Root systems are very diverse--I hadn't seen one like this before.

Some fungus I found in some heavily wooded, shady forest. They were surprisingly hard, although they look very soft, they were about as firm as an unripe peach.

This is not a picture of mars...it's actually a close-up of the top of the largest mushroom. ;-)

These are the mushrooms...three lovely specimens from my neighbor's yard. The rest of the photographs are these mushrooms, shot from different angles, with close-ups, etc.

Yes. I'm obsessed.