PrettyTiny Film Company -- random pix (Oct. 31 -- Happy Dolloween!)

[davidd]

The tiger is impressive! And nicely scaled to work with your dollies!

The aerial snowboarding is totally beyond epic awesomeness! So amazingly cool! Or gnarly. Or whatever hip snowboarders say.

Love the ice cave. Or ice crevice. Depends on your scale, I suppose.

So depressed to learn about the looming garage.

[Alliecat]

Thank you 
It's fun doing trick shots like the snowboarding, or the low-light stuff.

...yeah, things here continue to spiral downward 

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Trying to catch up with photos.
Here are a few more of Red with the amaryllis.


"Look, it's ... RED!"






It's a really BIG flower.

And more of Jewel...


Purposeful little fairy strolling through the woods.















But, why walk when you can fly?













I get carried away and shoot a ton of pictures; it was hard to choose just 10 of her.
Thanks for looking 

[davidd]

She's flying! Flitting about! Fluttering! Hovering!

That is so cool! Why, you could totally bamboozle Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with those amazing pictures!

And just look at that rich velvety saturated redness of the red flower... and of Red... or at least, of the red streaks in her hair.

Super gloriously fun pix!

Send the fairies to let the air out of the construction company's tires.

And start packing your stuff.

When I decided I wanted to move to Hawaii, after my first vacation there, I never even fully unpacked my suitcase after returning. And even though I didn't know how or when I would be moving, I started packing my stuff. Things I knew I wanted to keep, but which I wouldn't need right away, I started packing in boxes and tubs and labeling the tubs with a brief description and the date.

Seriously, I just opened one of those boxes, dated August 1999, last week. It had art supplies in it. I shipped that heavy box from Oregon to Hawaii, never once opened it, and shipped it again from Hawaii to Utah.

It would have been far cheaper to simply toss everything and buy new art supplies.

To my surprise, however, both the acrylic and the oil paints are as good as the day they were purchased.

But there was a lot of heavy art paper and blank canvas boards in that box. Canvas boards are as cheap as a buck apiece now at the Dollar Tree. Some of the paper, in all manner of weird sizes, is okay, and some has yellowed or curled.

That box wasn't worth shipping. Or I could have it the paints in a shoe box rather than in a ginormous banana box.

'Kay, anyway, the point is, if you really wanna get out of there, if you're serious about getting out of there, start packing and start purging.

I know it's hard. All the family stuff. Parents' stuff. I have half a storage shed full of stuff I hauled home from my mom's house after she passed away a couple of years ago. I haven't opened a single box. It all brings back waves of memories from when I was a kid, and it's almost impossible for me to let go.

But I know I have to. At some point. Sell some. Donate some. Toss some. Keep a little bit.

If I were to move, it would be absurd to try to move it all. And if I moved it, it would sit in boxes forever, until I'm gone and somebody comes in, looks it over, and tosses it all in to a dumpster.

I want to apply the I'm-gonna-move mindset to my own stuff. The wind is blowing like nobody's business here in Utah today, and after being back for a month, I'm sick of that wind. And sick of the cold.

Florida is too crowded. I don't wanna stay there, necessarily, either. I don't know where I wanna go or what I wanna do, but I wanna spend this summer getting ready to do something; something different that what I'm doing now.

Anyway, I think once you have a definite goal or objective in mind, there's something to the "visualization" thing. The visualization thing is more effective if there's some action to back it up. I kept a cocoanut on top of my unpacked suitcase after that Hawaii trip. I took that cocoanut back to Hawaii when I moved. And when moving time came... okay, packing up was a nightmare, but it wasn't a complete horror show because I already had a lot of stuff ready to go, and had boxes and tubs ready for most of the rest of it. And my suitcase was already half packed!

Are you gonna take that piano with you when you move? All those vhs tapes and CDs and DVDs?

That reminds me -- I must have three tubs of CDs buried in the back of the storage shed somewhere. Time to rip 'em all to digital and dump the three tons of discs that I haven't looked at in the almost 8 years I've been in Utah and the several years prior to that I was too busy in Hawaii to bother with 'em.

O' course, I look at the magical fairy pics and I see why you want to stay put. Hoping to recapture the magic.

Is there anyplace else on Da Island you would consider moving to?

Have you researched "comps" to get an idea of what you could reasonably eect to clear if you sold your current house?

You have to set aside what's gone awry with where you're living if you want to sell your house. Most people, it seems, prefer to live where there are neighbors and activity. I'm watching the people across the valley from where I live -- watching them from my lofty perch on a hilltop -- and marveling at how they build their houses right next to one another even though they are on 5 and 10 acre lots. I see that one of the "new" houses is for sale. I wonder if the owner got annoyed when the person who bought the lot next to him built his ginormous house DIRECTLY IN FRONT of his, blocking his formerly unimpeded view of the red cliffs? Similar situation to yours, I suppose; no control over what adjoining land owners might do. And whatever the adjoining land owners will do, guaranteed it will be as intrusive and obnoxious as possible.

Ahhh... but fairies among the mosses! Not all the magic is gone.

[Alliecat]

I don't know where I wanna go or what I wanna do, but I wanna spend this summer getting ready to do something; something different that what I'm doing now.

THIS.
There are motivational quotes stuck all over my fridge, cupboards, bathroom mirrors, and accumulating on my laptop.
Perhaps you might also find some of Tony Robbins's motivational videos... well... motivational.

I will put the rest in a PM.

[davidd]

I will put the rest in a PM.

I had typed out a lengthy PM to you yesterday. Like, really long. And then... the machine ate it!

The Dolly Market forum locked up or glitched or something and it all disappeared.

I really need to start typing my PM messages in a text doc first or something.

Basically, I asked a million prying questions; but you've answered several of them in your message! Psychic powers!

[Alliecat]

I think the million questions were in your post above.
Yes, if there's any length at all, ALWAYS write it in Notepad or something and paste. I learned that -- eventually.

[davidd]

I think the million questions were in your post above.

There was a second million questions PM. I was looking at the website for your old art shop, and at a Google Earth view of the neighborhood. I asked a lot of questions about the marsh and the vacation rental cabins across the street from you and a bunch about the island and stuff. It looks like a nice area. I can't believe the other neighbors, especially the holiday cabins, are cool with the heavy equipment yard going in.

[Alliecat]

Ah. Last time I looked at Google Earth the picture was from before the house, garages, and further destruction. The holiday cabins are all tucked into the woods – there was somebody who knew how to build things without destroying a lot… Tried to build in harmony with nature. So they have quite a buffer from the racket. They are way across the road and would mostly hear the trailer rattlebanging in and out. They are not trying to sleep 60 feet away.
And yes, it WAS, a really, really nice area.

[davidd]

Yes, the Google Earth image shows a big bare patch of ground next to your lot. The structures had not yet been built and the equipment had not yet been moved in.

[Alliecat]

Had a photo binge with Victoria, escaping my house for a little while.  Photography always makes me forget the rest of the world for a while.





"Oh hai."












Waiting for her ship to come in...?



A wee nap.  That ship seems to be delayed.



Found a buoy.  I don't think it's seaworthy.



Found a wishing rock.
I wish they worked.



Beach grass coming up.






And some photos with the forsythia, dropping its flowers already.  That was short-lived.






Found a ladybug up in there.




Thanks for looking! 

[davidd]

Beachcombing on a day with no wind! That's livin' the life!

My but she's a cutie-pie! I love that outfit!

That's the Twilight Barbie outfit? I looked at that one on eBay. The costume doesn't look as nice in the eBay pics as it does on Victoria! She wears it well!

I love that style of gravel-sand on the beach. It reminds me of one of my favorite beaches that we went to with our grandparents when I was a kid in Oregon.

[dargosmydaddy]

Wow! She's gorgeous, as is the scenery... awesome set of photos.

[Alliecat]

I guess we talked about the Twilight Barbie outfit elsewhere, but yeah, it's kinda cool.  Victoria rarely gets out of her stock outfit so it's interesting to see how different she looks.
The gravel-sand beach has quite a lot of rocks.  You have to watch where you're going, especially in the dark.
And there was a breeze, enough to blow her off that rock where she's standing up there looking all epic.  She went facedown and I was horrified... thank goodness she was OK. 


A few pix of Celeste from yesterday and today -- it's been raining for a week so she needed her raincoat!  The Barbie rain boots didn't fit and would've made her legs look too long with her feet only halfway down them.  So she has her fancy boots instead.

[fishy]

Your fairy photos are always so cute.

Sorry about what's happening to the nature where you are, seems like it's happening everywhere. Some of these developers never watched Fern Gully growing up and it shows.

[Alliecat]

Some of these developers never watched Fern Gully growing up and it shows.

I don't believe I ever did either!
But yeah -- among the many factors complicating a search for "somewhere else" is that I refuse to buy a "fully treed" woodlot and then trash it to cram a house in 

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I received a little goody packet for entering the Omocha Crush banner contest.  This cute dress and necklace suits Cherie nicely.





Tomato leaves and light-coloured doll hair are not a safe combination, but she managed to complete this shot unscathed.






Ava is a  "Party Pop Teenies" character.  This is one of those gimmicky little things that is supposed to "pop" open with a shower of confetti, thus providing approximately two minutes of entertainment and a ton of waste plastic.  The "pop" didn't work, because the sticky paper didn't peel off well.  She's cute, but, UGH -- sooo much wasted packaging with a plastic can, a few pieces of paper confetti, a metal spring to pop the can (or not), and an instruction insert (that wasn't very clear).  Plus the plastic wrap, and the wee plastic bag that her little slice of cake came in.
>sigh<  She's cute, but, I abhor waste and the popularity of this kind of product is one of many good examples of why humans are doomed.
/end rant.  I did appreciate the thought behind the gift for forum participants.






Ava's slightly eye-rolled, slightly sad ex-pression pretty accurately sums up my thoughts about her origins.




Thanks for looking.