Life

A month past – still here!

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Wow – a month has passed without a post!

I am still here. I have been checking the Twittersphere when I can, viewing Flickr and Instagram, keeping up with family on FB. My art for the last 4 weeks has been in organizing moving and juggling a housing purchase while prepping the current house for listing!

We list on July 8 with an Open house on July 10. Hoping for a quick and clean sale!

Movers are coming in 15 days! So getting things packed, labeled and organized.

And – remembering why we are doing this – Landon! Squeezing in a day to go visit. Soon we will be close and we will be part of the day care team for 2 days of the week and as needed. 🙂

Looking forward to getting my office set up and back into a digital creating cycle again.

So far – it is still creating – just different ways.

Packing

Packing

My Little Guy!

 

 

What Just Happened? New Adventures!

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Wow! Still pinching myself and trying to figure out what just happened. Almost seems like a Thelma and Louise moment of decision-making! But with a better outcome!

We have a new grandchild – our first. Our daughter lives about 6o miles from our current residence. Not a horrible distance, but enough to make visits something that have to be coordinated. No pop ins either way and no “can you just run over for 15 minutes and help me out” types of things.

Leaving from a visit about two weeks ago as we were driving out of the neighborhood, I spotted a house and just casually pointed it out to my husband and said that I really liked that house and could see myself living there if it was possible. Just mostly dreaming and in a way story telling in my head. I had no idea what the house looked like on the inside etc.

The next week I went to spend a few nights to help my daughter out while her husband had to be out of town. A 3 week old and new mom need extra hands. We were chatting about how it would be nice to be closer for helping out over the hour plus drive. As we were chatting – we heard activity outside. A FOR SALE sign was going up on the house I had admired! We quickly brought it up online. I had been watching the housing in the area for more than 18 months and new styles, looks etc. I had started watching when my daughter was looking for her home and never stopped the search updates. Over that time I really never saw anything that said MOVE NOW. Some things that were like dream places and way too big, too expensive, and too much upkeep for us in this stage of life, or too small, too old, too many projects that we just don’t want to do anymore. BUT-  this one was different. It actually looked like it was meeting all the dreamy checklist items I created in my mind that I thought would be impossible to ever come up.

Next – my husband is not a change lover like I am. He puts up with my change addiction, but does have some comfort boundaries.

I showed him the house online and reminded him of our previous conversation before it was for sale. He said – let’s look at it. WOW! Not expected.

Then things just get faster and more connected.

We made a showing appointment for a Wednesday. We took our daughter with us and we toured. It spoke to both of us as soon as we entered. Some of the customized features of the home were things we have done in our homes or have wanted to do. The finishes were not a downgrade from our current residence and several are actually upgrades. Some of the perks one thinks they should have after working hard for many years. Touring we noticed that most of the color pallette in this home were the exact same colors I have chosen over the last 2 years in our current home as updates. We got to the mechanical room of the house and found it has radiant heat and a boiler. My Dad was a great believer in radiant heat and we had learned a lot from him on what to look for, what was good etc. in a system. We couldn’t find anything that wasn’t pleasing or comfortable.

We went home and had some conversation. Should we move from the area we have known for almost 60 years of life? What would it be like moving to a rural town? But we would be closer to family. Very close to our new grandchild and 40 miles closer to our oldest daughter as well. We know our current residence we love -but taking care of 8 acres and a large home is getting to be not what we want to spend our time doing. This new place would still have things to do, but at a scale that is more enjoyable and not task mastering.

We decided to make an offer on Thursday. Did the research came in with a lower offer than asking price, but still fair for all as we saw it.

16 hours later we received news the offer was accepted in we were now in a legal contract to purchase! Closing will be within 30-45 days!

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OMG!!! What just happened? Usually we take painstaking steps or research and revisiting and reflection to make a decision. It takes me weeks and samples to choose a paint color!

But this all seems right. If it doesn’t work – we can move again.

We don’t have jobs anymore to tie us down and work around. We have not made the “snow bird” life choice of 6 months somewhere else each year. We can still commute to see friends etc. when we want and that will become the planning and scheduling instead of planning and scheduling family. It just all makes sense. And too many coincidences and signs – too many to list here now that say this is going to be good for us and our next adventure.

Nothing we are going to do can’t be changed again.

We only have this one time to be part of our grandson’s development. He has already changed so much in his first month – we don’t have years to make this decision. We have to act in the present to make a difference in the future.

So many things we thought we would do leisurely like clearing out belongings – getting the current residence “spiffy” and ready for selling. Now all that gets moved up and fast paced! We do have the advantage of some pacing as we have a closing date on the new home and the current one is not even for sale yet – so some transition time. But still a lot faster than ever imagined.

BUT IT FEELS RIGHT!

Here are the realtor pics of the new home with the current owners stuff – so things will change.

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ALBUM of REALTOR PICS

and here is our current home – someone looking to move – let’s make a deal!

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So – to my #ds106 friends and collaborators – I will be popping in and out for a few months. I won’t totally be gone – I don’t have that in me – I am #4life. Trying to think of it as my summer break. By the end of August we should be settled and set up again. I will be in the background watching and listening and supporting – not gone until then. Not sure if I can go that long without a GIF or video or design creation!

I see several hours ahead with my iPad blasting #ds106radio tunes as I am packing, cleaning, etc.

Also in my mind trying to figure out how to capture and create the story of the beginning of the adventure to put together once we are set up again.

And the awesome part is the online world doesn’t have to get packed or moved – just wifi! One less thing to think about. LOL!

#4Life

Cinemagraph Learning step 1

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Earlier this week

I wasn’t sure why they are called cinemagraph other than having the same observation as

In some ways it took me back to Oct2015 and trying to step up into the Gifitup challenge. Taking time to make a GIF art over just an animated reply or statement. I am of the camp that they all have a place and purpose. The snarky fast GIF can say more than a full blog post at times and a really great art GIF can mesmerize for hours.

So the next conversations were….

The #ds106 club jumped right in with suggestions, resources and encouragement.

So as I am waiting for the arrival of grand baby #1 – whom at this time seems to be teasing us with a later than expected arrival and some false starts and my body is sore from spring garden clean up – I decided to try and focus on the challenge. I have to admit – my focus ability is very short now – so this is going to take a few iterations. To keep it in scope and to keep building – I started with the inspiration. Well -Cristopher Benitah spent a year collecting photographs and is at more of a professional level than I am -but that should not be a show stopper.

Subject and planning are key here. Not wanting to get to invested or too far from home in a video shoot if “the call” comes,  I found his example of hands, sky and water.  I thought this would be a reasonable goal and would use the subject as a way to deconstruct the process and decide what I need to do. Hopefully this will then help make a video set up more productive when I get to that point. I have visions of baby cinemagraphs floating thru my brain. 🙂

Started with a photo of my husbands hands to be able to crop out back ground and make my still. I used his because it was a quick shoot instead of setting up a tripod and remote to take a shot of my own hands. Nice to have a model around at times.

Pulled into PS – standard stuff. Lasso and magic wand and eliminated the background. Adjusted the photo to B&W and saved it.

Searched for some video footage of rain that was labeled reusable. Wasn’t very obvious in what I found, but then used the GIFIt plugin for YouTube and captured 6 seconds. Imported into PS using tutorial suggested by @mdvfunes at http://photodoto.com/how-to-make-a-cinemagraph/

Brought it into PS via Open after setting my workspace as Motion.  Had to do some problem solving as directions were not for same version of PS and things are in different places…. Set frame rate at 12. Pasted the hands in as a layer and lowered opacity and then that gave me something and I am still not sure what it was or is: Not very long – should probably loop it for better effect…

http://45.media.tumblr.com/0575c3af763611dbb760dc87230ab213/tumblr_o63w5l1n2I1ucblsbo1_400.gif

From there I went back to what I know – imported video as frames. Used Timeline and created frame animation from layers, made sure all new layers visible in all layers was checked and pasted in the hands. I ended up with an 8mb GIF – so went back and got rid of 40 frames and got down to 9. Copied the 9, reversed them and added them to get 18 movement frames. Applied the hands frame but wasn’t able to take the opacity down -still trying to figure that one out. That would make it look like the hands were actually in the water. Scaled down the size to 500 pixels and got a gif at 863k.

http://konarheim.tumblr.com/post/143282501555/trying-for-cinemagraph-far-from-it-yet-need-to

What I wanted was the hands a little more transparent and then a lava lamp bubble horizontal in the palms moving as the rain was moving behind it.

A few tweets and @dogtrax was able to turn on a light bulb.

But for video within a video with a still as a mask and constant will still take many frames being merged – at least in my brain and my level of PS. So I am thinking there are actions and presets to do some of this to be explored to speed things up over merging layer one of vid 1 with layer 1 of vid 2 and so on….don’t cha think?

I may try the long and tedious way with a short clip to try it out when I want the video within video with still.

The real challenge and task ahead is starting with my video and capturing that….seems there is plenty to keep me busy on this.

I am also now thinking I could use the accidental video now as an import as one layer – so again more to think of in creating the parts to get to a whole. Hoping eventually to document more precisely start to finish  – that will help me – but let’s just call this the semi-focused keeping busy so I am not worrying about when “the call” will come for now.

Thanks @dogtrax, @mdvfunes, @twoodwar, and #ds106 club for the diversion and a reasonable challenge  to take on in staying creative each day and between larger projects. Doing the sprints of creating art objects is good practice and spurs the thoughts and visions of ways to use in other things.

#4life 🙂

 

 

Coming up for Air – Baby Here Soon!

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Geesh! Time flies when you are doing lots of different things.

I took on some consulting hours to help an organization write their technology plan and have ended up taking on the clean up of their website. A content management system is used which is great and distributes work. But for the last 3 years there have been many transitions and all of the check points fell off the map. The front end just look tired and had some dead ends, some loops and some things that were conflicting- not too bad, but only because there were no viewers using much of it. The back end – out of control and very tangled. Becuase of their host and set up  – there isn’t a staging or development area. You can not publish things – but it makes the clean up of the back end even more tedious and error prone. So the only way is jump off the cliff and try to fly! So after a week of 12-16 hour days – I was ready for some sleep and a break.

First came my Happy Cow! A local paint and wine studio had a Friday afternoon session- so I signed up. When I got there I found out I was the only one and they didn’t cancel – so it would be me and Fred the instructor. Fred and I painted away and even finished 90 minutes sooner than was scheduled. I could have gone a little more leisurely – but it worked out fine.

Happy Cow!

I would like to do another one and work on a different type of eye, plus make the background a little brighter for some contrast.

Saturday morning – well started with some of the web grunt work – but just was not ready for it. My first grandchild’s due date is within this week- so I decided I needed to get the “Waiting” video done before arrival. Several months ago this had a lot of grand visions in my head – but I couldn’t get all I wanted. The plus was a weekly shot of Mom that shows the journey. We don’t know who the little person is – that will be a surprise for all until entry into the world. So excited!

Here is the video. I do want to get to more than just music and get more audio and narration in the family stories – but that is still evolving. Until then it is trying to find music that goes with the idea of the video. I have also begun to get better at keeping them to under 5 min. Any longer than that – no one wants to watch and they just go on. These are being placed in a flip book so each video created is separate and a reader can view, skip of view multiple times within the  book.

So – my #ds106 #4life friends – I am still creating – still learning from you, still growing my skills. And still tracking what you are all doing. One of you will soon have something that I won’t be able to pass up being a part of even if there are websites to clean up.

 

A Daily that got personal

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When Pigs Fly

Totems: Daily Create #1518

A totem (Ojibwe dodaem) is a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol that serves as an emblem of a group of people, such as a family, clan, lineage, or tribe.

Sometimes no matter how consumed you are in other creating projects or life – a daily create just screams “do it”. I find the daily creates spark in stretching by doing and going outside of something I wasn’t really thinking of and in some, hitting a note of reflection or memory that drives to making a creation.

Todays daily, #1518 was one of those memory reflection prompts. Seeing others posts and the personal statements attached to otherwise unnoticed objects reminded me of my own. Sure did take me to some very great memory moments and the more I thought, the more I realized all the threads and connects of this one tiny object.

I carry my flying pig charm in my wallet. It goes with me where ever I am.

The charm was a gift from the love of my life. About 1995 he had become interested in Harley Davidson motorcycles and riding. I joined his interest and we took the motorcycle safety course and got our cycle licenses. We started with one bike and within a year we each had our own. Part of the Harley culture is pigs – or more appropriately HOGS. About this same time he was launching a business of his own in software development consulting. Dreams and plans were more than abundant. It was a challenging and stressful time – but also an exciting time of our life. We spent many an evening on the patio with drink in hand building the dreams of our future for family, home, and work.

As a Christmas gift to each family member, he gave us the charm and then read the poem to us. A reminder for us all to keep and never stop dreaming.

When Pigs Fly
By Sandra Boynton

I know you for a dreamer
Cause I’ve been a dreamer too
You got that faraway look in your searching eyes
And a heart that’s steady and true
I think I know what you’re looking for
In the endless blue of the sky
You wait for the time when pigs fly

Get out here somebody tell you that dreams are nothing but air
Did I hear somebody try to say
That imagination will take you nowhere
If anyone says it can’t be done
As the time just simply reply
It’s a beautiful thing when pigs fly

You never know and it will be
But they’ll surely come around
Flashes of pink and flashes of gold
And a distant and joyful sound when pigs fly

I know for a dreamer, cause I’ve been a dreamer too
You got that faraway look in your searching eyes
And a heart that’s steady and true
Are we suddenly seeing a dozen or more
Sailing in the clear blue sky?
The time has come when pigs fly
Yeah, it’s a beautiful thing when pigs fly

After that gift to us all, the flying pig became one of the themes of collecting for him and for the rest of us to find as gifts to him. Flying pigs pop up in many places of our home in different ways. We have a collection of flying pigs that hang out in our morning room, yard ornaments, containers, artwork, and more. Hopefully I have been able to keep all these around tastefully in different places. I don’t think our home looks like a flying pig farm! Maybe someone who visits will be kind enough to comment as to whether we have gone too far or remain obsessed yet tastefully creative in our inclusion and presentation.

But – the little charm started it all. While I know I always have it with me, as time has gone on I don’t always think of it. The prompt today reminded me to take the time to remember. And what I am now remembering is the connects this little pig has given me. First, it gave me an insight to my husbands thoughts during a certain time of his life. He is not one who can easily share his deepest thoughts – but is a very deep and complex thinker.

The flying pig has been a thread for more than 20 years now. I see my girls find them for their dad and enjoy his reactions when they give him a new object. For all in the family – his sister, my sister and niece, even myself – the flying pig is a way we connect with him and show our love and happiness that he is a part of our lives.

In writing this post and finding the poem again, I discovered it was written by Sandra Boynton – a children’s writer. We are awaiting the arrival of our first grandchild in April. For the holidays this year I started the building of the library for Baby V. (we won’t know who they are until they arrive!) and several of the books were by Sandra Boynton. So now our new little angel is already connected to the Flying Pig!

The flying pig and the poem also connect me with others. You can read how here via a picture and blog post by Kate Ter Haar.

The following photo is from @katerhaar
Photo by Kate Ter Haar : https://www.flickr.com/photos/katerha/14669346981

The time has come when pigs fly Yeah, it's a beautiful thing when pigs fly

Take a look at Kate’s blog. Her wit and creativity of combining words with photos in her posts is worth the time ten fold. A great pleasure to view and read. She is a true digital storyteller. Kate and I connected in 2009 thru the 365 Photo group which has grown now to over 1700 members in 2016. It was about 200 in 2009. Many of those who started in 2008 with the group are still active posters. I need to get into the posting habit again, but it is still one of my favorite places for picture viewing.

And yet another great memory and connect of the flying pig – my parents. My mom was one to love a theme and use it as a connect. My dad – always a one to do so as well. In taking the picture for the daily create I placed the charm on a cheese box I had found about a year ago for Dixie cheese. My mom’s name was Dixie and she loved cheese – another family tradition and joke -“never enough cheese”!

Today’s daily create was one of those personal connections. It also is a reminder to self that creating daily is important. Some days it will be for skill building, some for stretching outside my box, and some for the joy and reflection or remembering past creates and connects and how experiences and creating enrich and make us the complex and interesting people we all are in life.

May you too see the day that pigs fly.

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