Dragonfly summer

Above: The world's smallest pancake, made by Jeff for one of our nieces.

I can't believe it's already halfway through August. Holy cow. Seems like the summer just whizzed by. Remember when we were kids and the summer seemed to last forever? At least until late August, when the looming shadow of school accelerated those last couple of weeks, of course.

I've enjoyed our trips and cottage visits, but I'm very happy to be getting back to a regular schedule for a while. These days I'm working on the Writer's Digest article, a middle reader novel, an online professional site for my writing and illustration (finally), a new illustration project. Spent most of today on the portfolio site.

Here are some of the navigation icons I came up with:







The personal icon is temporary (I'm not sure what it is, either...perhaps a pig-bear?) until I think of something more interesting, possibly chocolate-related. I'm also open to suggestions. What object do YOU think I should use as my personal icon?

Seanan McGuire's "Dorothy" track arrived on CD by snailmail yesterday; I'm hoping to add flute to it and send it back to her for possible use on her recording project. What a wonderful song; I've been listening to it over and over today. As an experiment, I moved to the file to a new track in Garageband and TA-DAAAH! It worked...all I need to do now is record my flute in a separate track.

As I mentioned in an earlier Blathering, however, I can't use my microphone until Audio-M updates its USB drivers to be compatible with Intel machines. :-( Supposedly this will happen within the next six months. Because I need a microphone to start recording GAfilk prep stuff for Urban Tapestry (we're guests of honour in January!) and the built-in microphone in my MacBook sucks, I've decided to start researching USB microphones...at least that way I'll have some way of recording music until Audio-M updates its drivers. Plus it'll be handy to be able to just stick the mike and my laptop in my bag for Urban Tapestry practices without extra cords, pre-amps, etc.

I have no idea if the USB microphone will be good enough to record flute for a CD, but I figure it's at least worth a shot. Meanwhile, I'll cross my fingers and toes and hair that Audio-M will come through.



And finally, some more cottage pics...

Jeff takes our nieces sailing:



A dragonfly emerges from its larval form:



I'm a huge fan of dragonflies. Not only because they eat mosquitoes, but also because they always seem so other-worldly to me. During our cottage visit, a dragonfly landed on me as I floated in the lake and I tried very hard to stay still so it wouldn't fly away. It's good luck to have a dragonfly land on you, y'know.

Ok, I just made that up, but doesn't it sound like it should be true?

Now if only the world had more dragonflies and less squirrels...

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