*butterfly36rs

So much good stuff going on, but also those hassles come right at the time we need them the least...

My desktop has retired to the great MotherBoard in the Sky. Or perhaps it sank to the depths of PC Hell, I'm really not sure.

But, at any rate, my Big Blue XPS Dinosaur has gone extinct. Those QC guys sure know when a machine is destined to fail... My extended and no longer renewable warranty expired not long ago...

None of my photos were on my hard drive, but my back up image was on a drive in the machine and Big Blue seems to have, well, devoured the other drives! Recovery steps are in process, but I have little hope. Some spreadsheets and word documents and my emails are gone, but I'll be fine.

Sort of...


Moving truck coming next week. I fly away from this New England locale for good the following week. Wow! I'm still boggled and delighted and mildly panicked. The fear and excitement went into overdrive last night as I packed up the art and photos from my walls... My house here finally looks like I'm moving. Bare walls are a sure sign for me...

Ahh, but the life she is good, is she not?

I will be back online in a more normal mode in the fall. Much love to ya'll, my DA friends!

~butterfly Rae

... !Damned Busy! ...

Yeah. I'm not having - and will not have - much time online this summer. So please accept apologies for not commenting and such.

But, whoa, life is... westward bound!

I landed a job! I found a house!

My mental faculties are supercharged, and I am enjoying very much the challenges involved in planning and executing such a major life sh/w-ake up.

I have roughly two weeks to finish packing. Yes, I am doing it all on my own... while the New England house is being shown to buyers, too. I may pull this house off the market and lease it out, though. I'm just not willing to make two mortgage payments for too long!

Then I have five days to load a full-sized moving truck. I estimate it will require 15-18 feet of the truck. I hired movers for the loading and will hire for the unloading on the other end as well. I can pack boxes efficiently and effectively, but I just can't move large pieces of furniture!

Finally, the trucking company will drive our household goods across the continental US. I expect it will have to stay in storage for a week or so while I finish closing on the new house.

I should be taking possession of new home by first week of August. I'll start my new job mid August.

Wow.

My kids don't really care for fortune cookies. So they sit on the counter until I eat them or throw them away. Today, I ate two...

Update -

I have a job! I never thought I'd get one just from a telephone interview, but the match is great. I'm really looking forward to it! I'll spend the summer moving and gearing up for the new position.


Our moving sale was quite successful. Cleared out a bunch of things I didn't want anymore and also some that I simply did not want to move. The money earned will help to pay for the move.


I had a home inspection on my own house so I know what to fix and what will come up on a buyer's inspection. Nothing major and I just have to decide which of the minor things I'll do myself.


I'm ridiculously busy with end of school year stuff, including daughter's 8th grade class night and promotion... wow, she is such an incredible young woman!


And all the other insane stuff that goes along with relocation... Crazy. I'm going to go crazy!



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Yup! Crazybusywonderful!

New car. No more mommyvan.

A sweet lil silver Civic.

Sunroof to help let in some light on rainy days in Washington.

Navigation system so I won't get lost.

And great gas mileage.


Other things in the crazybusywonderful world of me: moving sale, moving van, home sale, home purchase, and all the little details that go along with picking up a family of three and moving them across the continental US.

OH! I'm so thrilled to have learned the species of my little spiderlings. And to have known and photographed their mothers!



The spiderlings are Araneus diadematus. I identified them via nicksspiders.com [link] . He even has spiderling pictures and descriptions that match what I observed.

But, even better... I photographed these babies' mothers in the fall! I did search for egg sacs but never found them.


Here are the mommies:












And, to celebrate, I'm going to post a few more images I took in the fall of the first mother spider.

Went dress shopping today.

For my daughter.

Upcoming 8th grade class night.

She hasn't worn a dress since kindergarten I think!

She chose a very beautiful and classy Jessica McClintock dress, and I only had qualms with the price, not the style.

It's lovely... and so is she.


I love you D.B.

Update: Yesterday I found a nest out in the garden, so I took a few. Boy, it was challenging! The mass was quite deep, so depth of field was a bugger! Also, the light was fading quickly and I had to bump my ISO wayy up. I did manage a couple shots to show you all.

Then, not long after I went inside, a massive thunderstorm broke. Yellow-orange sky and lightning and deafening downpour. Just lovely wonderful! But I assumed my little nest of spiderlings would be gone by morning.

Wrong! Today, they were there sunning and clustering. A few have ventured off on a tangent, and there is a nice bit of webbing over the little shrub and neighboring plants. So... I tried a few more shots. Hopefully, with the much improved light and a photographer who wasn't rushing, we'll see some better images shortly!





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Today, on the side of the house, I spotted some strange brownish stuff growing in little vaguely triangular shapes. They hung down from the bottom edge of the siding. There were five of them, I think, all sort of in a row from about ten feet off the ground right down to about three feet off the ground.

I looked closely and saw the familiar texture of those lovely round bumps of moss. Strange, I thought, for this sort of moss to be growing on vinyl siding... Granted, this is a dim and shady side of the house. And, yes, there is some moss growing, but it's the tiny flat patchy green smooshy type. You know... Very thin stringy smears of green. Not round, bumpy lumps of moss.

I touched a piece of it to feel that lovely velvety pimply surface. And WHOA! it exploded into a cloud... of spiderlings!

Incredible. I have five lovely little nests of the cutest, sweetest little spiderlings! After the majority of them spun down the side of the house in strands, they all began climbing back up. Within five minutes, they had recreated their little compact gathering.

I tried a few shots. None of them really worked out, though. The lighting was horrible, and the side of the house is ugly white vinyl. But... oh, they are so cute! How I would LOVE to find a patch of these sweeties in a lovely natural setting...

I wonder how long before they give up their colony and head out into the great wide world...

Update, Monday evening....

Sore. Tired. No cleaning and sorting got done today.

Just dig, plant, mulch, water. I was a garden powerhouse.

Well. Sort of.

Just a few perennials. Mostly annuals for a nice splash of color and to soften the edges of the existing beds.

Curb appeal, remember?

Good night, Irene...
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Monday, May 26

Yesterday was gorgeous, too. I did some yard work and will follow up today with flowers and perhaps some mulch. Curb appeal, baby!!

More cleaning and sorting as well.

And I'd like to say thank you to all my watchers and those who've stopped by to look at my flower and plant photos. Images of plants may not earn many DDs on DA (I had to go back to May 6 to even find one), but their popularity with viewers is apparent by the comments, journal features, clubs, and favs. Flowers make me happy, and I'm glad that they do the same for many of you.

Happy flower day!





Saturday, May 25

It's a beautiful day. Again!

I sorted stuff in the basement for about 4.5 hours yesterday. Keep, trash, sell. Yay!

I have 7 large garbage bags and 8 grocery bags of paper for recycling.

And there is more to do. But it's really energized me! It feels soooo good to get rid of things that I've carried with me as far back as the 80's and haven't really looked at except to box it up and move it.

I've posted a few things on Craig's list and will be posting a few more. (Yay for mah camera skillz!) This is my chance to down-size and simplify. Damn, it feels great!

Take care. Enjoy the holiday weekend, those in the States!

Rachel



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Saturday, May 24

It's a beautiful day.

I'm off for a morning photography walk before I drag myself down to the basement for a day of cleaning and sorting...

I'm having one of those panic moments when I realize all the work that is to be done if I'm ever going to get my butt and gear to the west coast.

Yikes. Anyone want to help me pack, load, and transport my life?!

I hope everyone enjoys their weekend.

Hugs,
Rachel

First of all, thank you. I've received some really wonderful comments in recent days about my photography. Thank you. It means more than you may know. I've been dealing with some artistic issues elsewhere, and to have the support here is simply wonderful. So thank you for every comment, every fav, every feature. I truly do appreciate it.

I'm very tired. Work has been wretchedly stressful. I am drained at the end of the day. Add to it all the chores and errands of a single parent at the end of the school year and that's just enough to make one completely wither.

Plus preparing for a cross-country move. Finally. Yes, this summer. I'm not ready, but I am ready. Job hunt is not so wonderful. Cost of moving is not so wonderful. But starting fresh is what I need. West coast... here I come... Give me a couple months to go chaotic-crazy here and hopefully find a job there, k?

Some good health news... latest pap was clear. As was follow up ultrasound on breast. And nose still looks clear. Early treatment and detection... I still hate cancer, though.

Bad mechanical news. Snowblower never worked all winter. Didn't really need it, so I never got it fixed. Now the lawnmower is fritzing. And the vehicular transport is acting up. And I'll be trying to sell all three before I move. Hopefully car will be covered by warranty. Blower and mower will just have to be repaired. Besides, my grass is already reseeding itself... knee high lawn... lovely, but not great for open house showings...

I want to be on vacation. I want a job lined up and ready for me. I want my mother already moving to be near me and the kids. I want my car and mower and blower and excess junk I don't want to move sold. I want to have everything ready to go. I want my house sold. I want a fuel efficient but not so ridiculously ugly car. (Will I ever get to have a sexy sports car? Will I?) I want... too much. Greedy, aren't I?

I looked at some of my images on my laptop and on a computer at work. Small view is always much too small for me to truly enjoy an image. And full view is sooo much nicer for seeing the details.

I try to size my images to be as large as possible for full view mode. My camera images are 3008x2000. Obviously, I have to resize for web upload, and I do add a border.

In processing for the web, I resize to 1000 on the longest side. That works well for landscape, but not for portrait! At 1000 pixels high, they are too big to view full size!

I have been using the DA resize option when uploading, making my images 600 wide. But that makes them 857 high, which is still too big for many screens.

The only other option on DA is resize to 400 wide. But that is a bit too small for my tastes. I like viewers to be able to see some detail.

So... I am asking for your help.

What fits height-wise on your computer screen? What size do you make your portrait images?