Love, Lydia - Notes from a geeky, plus sized artist.: national parks
Showing posts with label national parks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label national parks. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Photo Bucket List + Book Reviews

Hello again everyone,

So I read a post a while back from a photographer from the Rising Tide Society which contained her photo bucket list.  I thought it was such a great idea that I wanted to make my own list.  It's a really great exercise in being mindful about my goals, and since two of my goals are using my DSLR more and getting my home darkroom set up this goes right along with them.


My Photo Bucket List

  1. Set up my home darkroom.  Right now I have an unfinished bathroom that's just the right size for a personal darkroom.  I also have an old enlarger, some small trays and tongs, a beaker, and some other small things.  So what I really need to complete this is a sink/cabinetry for the wet side, a redlight bulb, chemicals and jugs to store them, a heavy duty trash bin, a table for my enlarger, some shelve for storage, a couple of large trays, and a proper seal for the door.  
  2. Go back to Ireland and photograph more of its beauty.  
  3. Photograph a castle, even better if there are costumes involved. 
  4. Go out west and photograph the milky way.  
  5. Photograph all the national parks I visit in my quest to visit all the ones in the US.
  6. Photograph a North-South tour of Chile.
  7. Visit some of the towns in Germany that my ancestors are from and photograph them.  
  8. Get better at editing digital photos
  9. Get better at using DSLR settings to optimize the amount of work to edit photos
  10. Become more comfortable photographing people
That's my list, and I'd love to hear about yours!  Comment below, or write your own blog response and tag me.

On to the Book Reviews!

From here on out every Wednesday you'll get a comic review and a novel review.  Today's novel is Off To Be The Wizard by Scott Meyer.

Image used under Fair Use guidelines

In Off To Be The Wizard our protagonist Martin discovers a computer algorithm that controls all life as we know it.  He does what more any guy would and messes with it, first to get cool stuff, and then once authorities are on to him to jump back in time to the middle ages where he has plans of becoming a wizard and living well.  Only it's not quite as easy as he thinks to pull off.  I found this book to be a really fun read, and have already started on its sequel.  The only problem I has with it was the severe lack of female characters, this book would in no way pass the Bechdel-Wallace test.  It left me feeling that the author just didn't know how to write women.  However this next book may change that, we'll see.  In any case this book is sci fi, nerdy, light-hearted fun, that's also very accessible to readers of all kinds.

Image used under Fair Use guidelines
Next up is Princess Ugg Volume 1 by Ted Naifeh and Warren Wucinich.  Princess Ulga is urged by her mother to find a better way for her people to live, so she goes down into the valley, leaving her highlands for a princess academy.  What follows are misunderstandings, a community that looks down on her and many obstacles for her to overcome.  Ulga has the determined heart of a warrior however, and is set on learning from all the encounters she has in the valley.  It's a cute, mostly light-hearted, and rather witty read, that is welcoming to both younger readers and adults.  It has just enough twists and excitement to keep what could have been a very formulaic read more interesting.

Thanks for reading, I'll see you all again Friday!

Love,
Lydia

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Mac and Cheese + Good Reads

Hello again!

Today I've got a new recipe for you.  I decided I wanted to tackle something new for the guys this week for our tabletop RPG night.  I love recipes that make things easy and one of the easiest ways I know of doing that is crock pot recipes.  I looked at a couple different versions of crock pot mac and cheese before coming up with my own.  Here is my version:

Leveled Up Mac and Cheese


What you'll need:

3 3/4 cups of shredded cheddar cheese (we tried Sargento's 4 State Cheddar because it sounded good/was on sale)
2 cups Mexican blend shredded cheese (we just used Kroger's version)
3 cups of milk
5 tablespoons butter
16 oz elbow macaroni
8 oz cream cheese

Optional:

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/8 cup bread crumbs (we went with garlic and herb seasoned)
1/8 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 package of bacon

Total time: about 3 hours

First boil the pasta until it's al dente, or if you're like me as soon as you look in the pot and see they've grown, then drain the noodles.

Then add all the items in your crock pot except the parmesan, bread crumbs, and bacon, stir them a bit and set the crock pot on low.  Come back and stir every half hour and in 2-3 hours it will be done.  You can tell it's done when everything is melted, smells good, and cheese starts browning on the sides of the pot.  When it's at that point just add a layer of the parmesan and bread crumbs on top, put the lid back on and set your crock pot to warm until you're ready to serve.

If you want to add bacon to the dish cook the bacon separately in the oven.  My favorite method is by putting the bacon on a foil lined pan, into the oven and then setting the temperature to 375F for 20 minutes.  After 20 minutes if it's not done just check it every few minutes until it's done the way you like it best.  You can then chop the bacon and add it to your bowl of macaroni.

We found that as a main dish this recipe feeds 5 adults, as a side dish it would feed 10.  It is very cheesy and fill you up more than you'd assume because of this.


And now for the book reviews:

Cover image used under fair use guidelines

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson was a really interesting read.  I had picked it up at a thrift store a while back knowing Bryan had enjoyed some of the author's books and thinking a book about the trail so close to where I group up in Roanoke would be interesting.  And it was!  The Appalachian Trail stretches from Georgia to Maine, with an extension trail that goes on up into Canada for those who wish to keep going, and Bill and his friend are about to tackle walking it all.  I think I ended up enjoying some of the more thoughtful sections of the book on history, nature, and the influence of man on it all better than I did some of the parts about the experience of walking the trail and the humor involved (the humor actually put me off a little at times).  I could mentally picture what it might have been like to see the huge old chestnut forests.  All in all it makes me want to go out and walk some parts of the trail and photograph it.  This is the kind of book that many readers will enjoy, but there will be parts you can take or leave along the way.  However, it's all worth the trip.


Cover image used under Fair Use guidelines


Velvet Volume 1 by Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting, and Bettie Breitweiser is the quintessential spy story.  A spy is framed and has to revisit past memories to find out the secrets that will allow them to clear their name.  Only in this case it's a middle aged female spy who was just working as a secretary at the time she was framed.  Over the course of this first book we find out just how much she knows and doesn't know about those she has spent her life working with.  And all this while she's on the run from her own agency.  This was one of our reads for the Word Balloons discussion group at Fight or Flight Comics (my local comic book store in Raleigh, NC), which I probably would never have picked up otherwise.  It reads like most spy movies and has a fairly formulaic feel, but undeniably left me wanting more the moment I finished reading it.

That's all for today, but I'll see you again Friday!

Love,
Lydia

Friday, September 18, 2015

All About Color

Hi friends,

Today I have a couple of outfits to share, plus I wanted to talk a bit about color.

Pantone's Fall 2015 Colors


Pantone, a design company whose work revolves around color releases apparel color trend reports for each season.  And I wanted to show you all the one they created for fall.  They call it Fall 2015's "An Evolving Color Landscape"  They basically try to predict what colors will be popular in a given season, and honestly at this point they are some of the people who are setting the color trends because they're so widely viewed.  Over the last few seasons Pantone has noted a trend for men's and women's clothing to use the same color palette, meaning that sometimes colors don't have to feel feminine or masculine because they're using more muted colors overall.

I think it's interesting to look at what they choose and compare it to the colors I wear and also look at it in light of various skintones.  For example, I'm a cool skin tone, my skin has a lot of pinks and blue shades in it so I tend to wear cool or neutral colored clothing.  Those with warmer skin tones have yellow, tan and rich brown shades, some folks are more in the middle with no obvious yellow or blue tones, but they might have olive or green undertones and they can wear many colors well with their base being in neutrals most often.  You can check by looking at the veins on your wrist what you skin tone might be, and you can find out more about this on Pinterest too by searching cool, warm or neutral tone clothing colors.


Personally I can't wear all the colors on this wheel, and maybe you can't either, it depends on skintone as we discussed above.  My personal favorites are 3 Amethyst Orchid and 6 Biscay Bay.  However the ones I definitely can't wear are 9 Oak Buff and 10 Cadmium Orange.  They're very warm and are shades it's hard to influence with surrounding colors to look cool.  Because yes, you can surround one color with another and the lesser color will seem to change in appearance because of what it's next to.  In fact, 7 Desert Sage is the perfect example of this.  Let's take a look:


Reflecting Pond makes Desert sage look nice and cool as it we were preparing for a storm, now let's make it look warm.


Well look at that, now that Desert Sage resembles nice warm sand when it's put beside Cadmium Orange.  Color is magical you guys!  Want to have your mind blown again?  Scroll back up to the color palette.  The text describing each word looks like it's the same color shown in the big circles right?  Nope, it's actually the color shown in the smaller circle, a darkened version of the real color that I made because the white background changes how we perceive small amounts of color on a mainly white background.  The text color works the same way as the small squares of the Desert Sage do.  Because you're only seeing a small amount of color it's influenced by the main color taking up so much more space.  So if you want to make a neutral look warmer or cooler just pair it off with A brighter color, B a greater amount of that bright color, and C if you can place the neutral in the middle of the brighter color rather than at the edge of it.  All of these will help change your neutrals into colors that you can make look just a bit different when you need a "new" look from old clothes.

Hopefully you all enjoyed this, and if you'd like to learn more about how to manipulate and pair colors let me know in the comments and I may come back to this subject again soon.  I really love talking about color, and when I went to art school we spent a year in one class completed devoted to learning to use color in ways like this.  I'd love to share more with you all.

And Now the Outfits!


Tunic - Isabel+Alice/Gwynnie Bee, Necklace - The Rafiki Foundation, Leggings - Target, Flats - Torrid


 The Rafiki Foundation is a Christian organization that works in Africa providing homes, medical  and educational services to orphans, training to teachers, and helps widows in the community learn various crafts to support themselves.  Their end goal is training communities for a better standard of living that's sustainable and entirely run by the community members themselves.  The widows there make jewelry, bags, clothing, baskets, and home items and then teach others what they've learned.  I heard of them through the church my family went to when I was growing up and love how passionate they are for the work they are doing.

Tunic - Isabel+Alice/Gwynnie Bee, Necklace - The Rafiki Foundation, Jeans - Lane Bryant, Boots - Trendsetter/Hushpuppies 
I'm reading one of the selections for Fight or Flight Comics (My local comic book store! Raleigh, NC) "Word Balloons" discussion group.  Bryan snapped this shot of me last week when we stopped by the store, and tomorrow we'll me up for the discussion group.  I'll tell you all about what I think of the 3 books we're reading by reviewing them next week!
Finally a nice cool day with perfect coffee drinking, flannel wearing weather!  Mug - Mesa Verde National Park, Flannel Shirt - Walmart, Doctor Who/Harry Potter Tee - Once Upon a Tee, Jeans - Lane Bryant, Flats - Torrid
I really love that mug, I got it when my friend Holly and I were on a road trip and visited Mesa Verde National Park.  The designs are from Mimbres tribal designs that originate from the cliff dwellers that used to live at the Mesa Verde site.  You can get a better look at it here◊, I have the one with the quail design, but they're all really lovely!  I had just been studying Mimbres and other Native American pottery the semester before our trip, so I was thrilled to find a keepsake with one of the designs on it.

Top - Forever 21, Necklace - Forever 21, Shorts, Levis/Amazon, Flats - Torrid



9th Doctor Dress - Her Universe, Leggings Target, Boots Trendstter
And lastly here's a peek into my bedroom.  My husband was sweet enough to let me get this big shoe rack so I could store my shoes more easily.  I love having them all visible and it allowed my to go through them all one final time and everything else is going to be donated or sold!  I'm so glad, I was hanging on to shoes I had from 15 years ago, and shoes that didn't even fit me well.  Speaking of things selling my Thred Up order was processed and if you'd like to see the items they accepted (about 1/2-2/3 of what I sent) you can have a peek here and maybe even catch a sale if you like what you see.  (Thred Up is an online consignment shop to buy and sell clothes from, you can get $20 off your first purchase from this link if you want to check them out)  I found that the good stuff goes fast, and you can hold items in your cart for up to a day (thought admins may remove them in some cases).  So you can put some things in your cart that you like, do something in another window, and reload the first page of new items and find new things every 10-15 minutes.  This works especially well if you shop in the evening.  And since I had some credit I did buy a couple of things!  I'm nervous to see how they work out, but will let you know.  Let me know what you think.



Let me know what you think of this batch of Pantone colors in the comments.  Anyhow, that's all for today ladies and gentlemen, thanks for stopping by, and I will see you next week!

Love,
Lydia

Friday, December 19, 2014

National Park Adventures Part 3

Hey folks,

So here's the second installment about the trip Bryan and I took down the Blue Ridge Parkway in September.  The weather was much more cooperative this day, so I managed to get better shots of the stretch between the Museum of NC minerals and Asheville.

For starters we made a stop at the museum, which sounded pretty great, but turned out rather disappointing because the museum was a bit rundown.  It looked like it had been updated about 10 years ago, but had bits that were broken or badly maintained and some outdated science thrown in for good measure.  Though Bryan was the one who spotted that bit, not me.  Bryan and I were both feeling under the weather, having caught a nice cold.  We decided we'd start on the parkway and see how we felt, which like the weather got a bit better.  Neither of us had the energy for the planned stop at Mt Mitchell, however, which was a bit of a letdown after how much I'd read about the unique environment there.

Mt Mitchell is the highest point east of the Mississippi River at 6,684 ft high.  Because of the elevation there the climate is more like Canada than North Carolina.  If you visit there are many dead tree skeletons, Fraser Firs, which have been killed by a combination of acid rain, air pollution, and possibly invasive insects as well.  We stopped often to catch views of Mt Mitchell as we climbed our way up to Craggy Gardens, our next stop.


All these shots are from various overlooks along the way, with my husband, Bryan in the one on the bottom there.  The views at each stop were spectacular.  The beetle is from one of the stops just as we were getting into Craggy Gardens; there were picnic tables nearby and he was happily taking in a bit of sun.  I believe it's an Oil Beetle - Meloe Impressus, probably a male because he has a kink in his antennae. Here's a closer cropped version -


As we approached Craggy Gardens I knew there would be a lot more rhododendron bushes present, but I really didn't realize there were incredible open meadows and very little tree cover.  The name for these open areas are balds.  They are generally believed to occur naturally, though some experts theorize they were created by Native Americans as areas to aid hunting practices.  Most balds present in the Blue Ridge Mountains have been vanishing over the last century, taken over by woodlands again.  In any case, Craggy Gardens still hosts many impressive balds, which took my breath away.  In some ways they reminded me of the Irish countryside, especially that of the Burren and Connemara where there is also little tree cover and the rocks jut up from the sides of the low mountainsides.  Additionally, the elevation was still quite high at Craggy Gardens, and there were Juncos present singing and flitting between the rhododendron bushes.  It was a happy little surprise for Bryan and I since they're one of his favorite birds, which is only present in Raleigh during the winter.  Below are a couple views of Craggy Gardens plus the sunset along I-40 on the way home.



After Craggy Gardens we descended in elevation growing closer to Asheville.  Our next stop was the Folk Art Center at milepost 382.  I was blown away by it, as it's really more of a museum in some ways with a huge craft store alongside.  Most of the work was truly art, made in both the traditional styles of the mountain culture and in more modern forms as well.  They boast 3 galleries over 2 stories, with beautiful architecture throughout.  The artists in these galleries are members of the Southern Highlands Craft Guild, and some of the same artist's work was available at Moses H. Cone.  The mushrooms pictured below were on the lawn outside the building.  We completed out trip with a visit to the headquarters of the Blue Ridge Parkway at milepost 384, it was no standout, but had a couple of fun activities and displays for kids.  Then we head back east to Raleigh, having seen the first few fall leaves of the year, and carrying a bit of art back home with us.



I've been quite busy with commissions, new art pieces, and preparing for the holidays this past month and regret that I didn't finish this post sooner.  However, I've got more posts on the way, and I'm looking forward to a new project for the new year.  I plan to be exploring a Pinterest pin every day of the next year and blogging about my experiences.  I'll be covering all kinds of pins from food, art techniques, cleaning tips, beauty tutorials, and more.  I promise there'll be something for everyone, and I'll be taking you readers along with me each step of the way!  It's going to be a big year!

Til next time - Love,
Lydia

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

National Park Adventures Part 2

Hey everyone,

So as a bit of introduction I thought I'd share a bit about why I'm writing about National Parks.  I've always loved National Parks and Historic Sites; as a kid my mom dragged my brother and I out to all the ones she could since we were homeschooled.  And I'm pretty sure I loved every minute of it then as much as I would now.  I'm going to be creating a page on here with a list of all the ones I've been to because I have a goal to visit them all one day.  This is more ambitious a goal than some of you may realize because there are over 300 of these treasures in the US and its territories.  So I think I'd settle for all in the states if I had to, though I'd love to get to the more exotic parks as well.  I'm even geeky enough to have a National Parks Passport to record it all since they have rubber stamps to ad cancellations at each park, sometimes more than one stamp for larger parks!



Anyway, Bryan and I took a trip up into North Carolina's mountains back in September for a family weekend.  On the way there we took the Blue Ridge Parkway from about milepost 277 at Deep Gap to 316 at Linville Falls, and on the way back from our weekend we went from around milepost 332 at the Museum of NC Minerals down to 383 and the Blue Ridge Parkways Headquarters in Asheville.  The two stretches were very different thanks to the weather.  Here are some of the highlights.


On Friday's leg of the trip we were able to see Moses H. Cone Memorial Park.  It's a mansion that used to be owned by Mr. Cone, which was willed to the park service with the condition that the land be preserved and open to the public.  Housed inside the building is the Blue Ridge Parkway's craft center.  Bryan and I bought a lovely pair of prints by artist Debbie Littledeer and really enjoyed all the work from the members of the Southern Highland Craft Guild. When we'd left Raleigh it was bright and sunny, but as you can see in the pictures above the weather was changing as we traveled.  In fact I don't even have pictures from our second stop at Linn Cove Viaduct.  The mountaintops were covered in clouds and visibility was low.  We sadly missed out on the iconic view of the engineering marvel that is the Viaduct area.  Here's what it looks like in good weather:

Image from DigitalHeritage.org blog

I'm originally from Roanoke, Virginia, so I grew up with the parkway being a fixture in our Sunday drives and family picnics.  However, what struck me most on this weekend trip was how different the North Carolina sections of the parkway are from the portions I'm familiar with.  For starters all of the 16 tunnels on the parkway are in the NC section.  Additionally the NC section is much higher in elevation overall.  Here's a chart that compares using the height of the viaduct as the example -

Image from BlueRidgeParkwayDaily.com

Over the weekend we spent time with family celebrating birthdays and anniversaries at the Nu Wray Inn in Burnsville.  It's a fantastic little town that's close to Mt Mitchell, the highest point in the US east of the Mississippi River.  We walked the downtown area shopping, visited the Saturday morning farmer's market, and enjoyed to garden and front porch at the inn.  The weather was just starting to feel like fall, which made it lovely for hiking and being outdoors.  Some of us decided to go the underground route however, and visited Linville Caverns as well.


On the trip Monday we started with the Museum of NC Minerals and went south from there.  However, this entry is getting a bit long, so I'll write more about the second part of the trip very soon!  Take care and I'll be back soon with a post about various ways to make crafts and DIY projects with yarn that don't involve any knitting or crochet!

Love,
Lydia

Thursday, October 23, 2014

National Park Adventure Part 1

Over the past couple months I've managed to have two great encounters with park locations.  Here's a quick write up of the first adventure!

So back on Labor day weekend I was itching to do something as my husband and I visited my family in Richmond, Virginia.  No one was feeling like going too far, so I took Bryan and my dad out to the Maggie L. Walker historic site for a tour.  My mom and I had visited a couple years ago and were highly impressed.  My husband and dad agreed with this opinion once they saw the importance this site has.

Maggie L. Walker was the first female, African American bank founder, and the bank was the longest continuously running African American operated bank in the US, 1903-2009.  Plus she did amazing things in her community through the Order of St. Luke and her connections with other prominent individuals during her lifetime.  The site includes her home as well as several nearby buildings, and her house is a gem among them.  She presented a completely modern, elegant face to the world through her home, which had electricity, indoor plumbing, and eventually an elevator, all before 1930!  It's heartbreaking that Walker isn't better known to the world considering this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all she did during her lifetime.

This picture is from the NPS site

There's a fantastic virtual tour you can see here at the NPS website, but I recommend a visit in person if you're able!

Next up, I cover some some stretches of the Blue Ridge Parkway I've never visited here in North Carolina.  Plus a blog about some interests that lie closer to home, and updates on art.  Til next time!

Love,
Lydia