Phoenix Progress

I almost goofed. I gave the tree and the ocean a bit more depth with some stronger contrast, and I darkened the inner window sill a bit. Not sure if I should darken it more or not. Assuming it's yellow on the outside as well, I think perhaps it's dark enough because the sun is fairly high in the sky and to the right a little, so while the right edge would be in shadow, it might not be in deep shadow because the sun would also be reflecting off of all that sand. It's hard to know when you're making it up as you go along. I'll have to see if I can dig up a reference photo to help.

When we left it:

Today:

So anyway, then came where I nearly messed up big time. I forgot I'd intended to raise the wings a little and started painting over the bird as it was. But then I realized it and was able to change it. I'll have to rework the water again because even though I sat down and drew out a quick sketch from my reference photos, I covered too much of the water when I set about painting the raised wings. I had to mix white in with the paint to help cover over the blue and the brown, so though I'd hoped to get into some bright colors today, I can't until it dries a little. I really wanted to get further along with this today, but oh, well.

A dilemma

Walking from my studio to the house I stepped onto the back porch and almost stepped on this creature. I looked down at it, it looked up at me, chirped a couple of times, and then hightailed it behind the plants. Panther, who had been nearby but seemingly uninterested, decided that moving birds are more fun than still ones and began to go after it. I picked him up and put him in the house, then went looking for the bird, but couldn't find it. About 30 minutes later, when I looked again, I discovered it behind one of the plants where it originally ran to, but because it had been so close to the pot I couldn't see it the first time I looked. It looked quite sad, and you could see that it had some damage around the neck and head, and I wasn't sure of the wings. One of them looked a little skewed. I thought the bird was done for, so I went ahead and let Panther back out because little though I liked it, killing it would be more humane than letting it die a slow death I thought, and neither my daughter nor I are constitutionally capable of wringing a bird's neck, or smashing it with a shovel, or any of the other gruesome ways of killing it that might come to mind. Letting nature take its course in the way of predator and prey seemed the way to go.

Except that once again, Panther showed no interest at all in a bird that wouldn't move around. Not only Panther, but Maddy, too, was more interested in her nap under the table than coming to see what the commotion was about. So after about an hour, and still no death, my daughter went to watch it. It seemed to be gaining some energy. It picked up its head from where it had let it fall, beak forward, and started chirping at her. I suggested she give it some water. That really perked it up. It had no problem drinking, and soon, it was standing up again. Drat. Now what to do with it? Its wounds didn't appear to be too bad, no blood, really, just a bit of feather ruffling and a bare spot or two. So I got a box, coaxed it in, and since I had to go to the pet store for Tiger's special bladder cat food concoction, I went searching for some likely bird food. My daughter and I thought it looked a bit like a baby chicken, especially considering its size, its beak, and its claws, so I checked on the net to see what chickens ate, and found some bird food that had some of the same ingredients. Just a very small bag. I'm not shelling out bucks we don't have on a bird that may die in the night.

So. It appears we have a chicken. It certainly looks a lot like these, which are Rhode Island Red babies. Or maybe its a baby rooster? It has a funny growth on its head, so maybe that's the beginning of whatever that's called on a rooster's head? We have roosters in this neighborhood, so it's quite likely there are chickens, too, I just don't know who owns them. I guess we'll be searching for the owners if the bird makes it through the night. I guess.

What are we supposed to do with a chicken? Besides the obvious. ;-)

Not for identification

I was supposed to be reimbursed for travel to the interview in Jax. Did I mention that? I waited a month. When nothing came, I sent an email asking when I could expect the reimbursement. Such a busy time of year, was the reply, it'll go in today. So, over a week later and I get an email asking for my SSN to complete the paperwork. My SSN? To send me a reimbursement check? So I replied saying that since SSNs aren't supposed to be used in such a manner (ha! as if you could get anything done in this country anymore without your number and just because it isn't tattooed onto us, doesn't make the practice any less insidious), especially as I'm not even an employee there, before giving it I would like an explanation of why. They use it as a vendor number. So I went ahead and sent my number because it's a losing battle, of course. I remember what a fuss people used to make about giving out their social when I was a young person, and how on the card I had before I married it said Not for identification (it doesn't any more, I checked). Now it's no big deal the way everyone asks for your SSN to identify you.

A card like my old one:

Well drat

I did not think this thing through. Well, of course I didn't, since I did it in the middle of the night while on a manic tear of productivity. I had to create a new gmail account for this blog. I do NOT like that you have to sign in with your email to get here. In order to have my other account open and blog in this one, I have to use two browsers. I think FF has the capability of doing it in two windows now, I remember reading it somewhere, but I don't use FF much any more. I could switch to it again, but I'm nicely settled into Chrome now. I checked to see if becominggrace was available on wordpress, but no. Although who ever had it moved 2 years ago to another address, but didn't want to give up the name, I guess. And variations brought no better news.

Why do I need my other gmail account open while I'm blogging? Because I'm an obsessive email freak, of course. I want to see what might come in while I'm blogging. Plus, I don't want to have to keep signing out there, signing in here, signing out here, and signing in there. All this signing in and out business. I know, I know, what a thing to complain about, eh? :-)

I'm presently at the airport waiting to pick up a friend and her plane is an hour late. I won't get home until 11, probably, because it takes 45 minutes each way to drive to her place and back. I don't mind the drive, though. It's on the freeway mostly.

People are starting to arrive from her gate. She'll be the last to arrive, though. She hasn't been doing so well. In fact, this trip was to see some doctors up north to help her with what's going on, so I know she'll be moving slowly and be very, very tired. I guess I better pack up and get ready to greet her.

Nostalgia

How to Dial a Telephone

Kitty update

Panther 2.0

Mademoiselle (Maddy)

Tiger in the foreground.

Maybe I'll just give up blogging

Ha!

I've probably sounded pretty neurotic lately. Because I am!!!!!! Back and forth, high and low, left or right. I'm not depressed, really, I'm just a mass of confusing, contradictory thoughts and actions. When I'm busy I feel more positive and see possibilities, but when I'm not busy I see my life as it is, and it's going nowhere, and it's driving me crazy.

Where is it supposed to go, Grace?

The heck if I know. It would help if I had enough gas money to get there, though.

It's raining

I'm beat and ready to go home, but it started raining. I don't feel like walking to my car in the rain, though it's warm enough. I've put in 4 hours here at school and have completed two weeks worth of lesson plans (4 weeks in a normal semester). My classes are 3 hrs and 20 min long M/W, except for Weeks 1 & 2 which only meet on Wednesdays, the first week because it's the first week, and the second week because of the July 4th holiday.

I like teaching the longer classes but I've never done it in 6 weeks before. Usually when I have a longer class it only meets once a week. I'm not giving homework this time. They'd be screaming for mercy if I did. We're doing all the work in class, which I think is actually better because my course is a practical application course anyway, so if we do the practical application together, I'm right there for questions and guidance. I'm more interested in them being able to do the work than giving them a grade for it. What good is it to have them do an exercise on their own and have me take off points for what they did wrong? Let me help them while they're doing it, have them do it right, get an A and have a useful, complete tool in hand for use later. This course is supposed to help them become better students not hurt their grade point average.

For the fall I'm going to continue with this mindset by having them work on things from their other courses while in my class that have to do with whatever topic we're covering. Even though what I teach is relevant to them as students, I want to make it even more relevant and useful to them by giving them exercises that help them in their other courses right away, not when/if they get around to using these things on their own.

I can't do it that way with this summer class, though, because it's a condensed course at the end of the term and many of them won't even be in other classes at the same time.

Well, the rain has stopped, so let me pack up and go.

Wow! What a week

Only 4 days away from my usual online pursuits and I have been busy beyond belief. Maybe I'm manic. I feel great and I can't stop going! I don't want to quit the things that I'm working on now that I'm FINALLY in the mood to do them all. But I have so many things going at once! I'm going to post links on FB so peeps can find me, but you'll have to read my other blog to get updated on what's what. My more professional blog, under my name as a domain. You'll also see links to the art site I'm working on. I still have lots more to upload and tweaking to do to the colors and fonts. Along with all that, if you go to my old blog site you'll see it has a new look, too. I'm going to use it for my French study group. But I have to stay OFF FB. So I'll post the link and leave it up for a couple of days and then deactivate again. I just do so much better with FB turned off. It's like I'm doing something wrong to turn it back again. ;-) Oh, the mind tricks I play to make myself do things. But hey, I have this awesome tool called a brain, so I may as well use it to my good in whatever way works, right?

I have also begun getting ready for my summer class which starts in 3 weeks. I spent all day at the college creating my assignment calendar, writing out my new syllabus and grading rubric AND I set up a blog for my class as well. Two semesters ago I started making them blog their writing assignments. I used the clunky blogging tool in the school's system, but this time I'm using Edublogs. 

It is 5 in the morning. I haven't been able to quit, but since Thursday is my French day, and I already spent much of the night working on that in a way, I guess I'll be sleeping for most of it. I may end up sleeping right on through the weekend. After all this activity, it's inevitable that I crash at some point. I even painted this week, but you'll have to see the latest update over on the new blog. I couldn't wait to blog about it before I had this site ready. I wasn't even sure when I'd have this site ready. So since I'm going to be talking about art over there anyway.....

I know I'm not making much sense. It's just that I'm starting to feel excited about my life again, and so I'm running with it for awhile. I'm also working on developing a course to add to my educational site. I started thinking that I really liked that college I went to for the last interview. If I could get on in their professional development/instructional design dept. that would really suit me much better than the job I went up there for. So I'm going to keep my eye open on their job board, and I want to be ready with some demos to knock their socks off. :-)

But there's only so much time in the day.

It's amazing to me how I've been so mopey and depressed and barely able to get through just the normal things that need to be done in a day, and now I feel like someone else entirely. I guess the Phoenix as landed.