Yup. That is me. And I look like man. Lord almighty, welding is definitely not very flattering, particularly when it’s cold outside and you have no choice but to wear a 3XL leather welding jacket in which you can barely bend your arms enough to do the welding. I went to buy some leather work boots yesterday -  an area of women’s clothing that could really use some help. They make my feet look so immense that I look like Meg from Family Guy. Despite my disappointments in being able to retain a ladylike appearance in any form, I did grow up a tomboy – so really I quickly forget about all that and am suddenly lost in learning this cool new process!

Oh yes, and that helmet? You can’t see anything (and I mean anything) through those things until you make a few sparks – so it’s pretty impossible to actually weld where you planned on.

In the shot above I’m doing some MIG (Metal Inert Gas) welding – which is essentially like a big hot glue gun. There is a piece of steel wire that runs through it, and when you hit a button on the nozzle it comes out and uses an electrical current or arc to melt the steel onto your metal surface. Pretty neat stuff! It took me some practice to figure out how to comfortably hold the nozzle and all, but after a short bit I started to get the hang of it.

(Instructor and one of the other classmates doing some stick welding)

We were introduced to stick welding too – which made me a little nervous. You use two giant positive/negative clamps like you’d use to jump your car. One clamp attaches to the metal table you’re working on and the other will hold a stick of steel that you weld with. Yeah… this just sounded like a bad idea to me. Alas, I did try it – and sucked pretty bad at it – but proud of myself anyway! Really hoping I can do most of my welding with the MIG welder though!

We’ll be starting our first projects in the next week or two. Right now, I’m thinking of making a truck bed extension for Andrew’s truck, so that we can more securely transport both of our kayaks this summer! It’s a pretty basic construction, just an L-shaped piece that fits into the trailor hitch with a bracket or bar on the other end to hold the kayaks. I’m a little nervous about making something functional – but going to give it a shot! Very excited!!

We had a party Friday night with some close friends to celebrate all the goodness of the past week… hooray! Lots of bowling, laser tag and air hockey – as we are just giant 12 year olds around here. In the morning, as Andrew went off to work I stumbled sleepily to my desk to catch up on emails and the latest happenings of Facebook and as usual, visit the blog and see if maybe I’ve broken my record of 95 visits in a day. I’m staring at those status bars thinking to myself “hmmm that’s so weird, the one for yesterday is like disproportionately huge compared like ALL the past weeks.. what is wrong with this thing?” *refreshing page several times* Then I rollover the bar of epicness and the visit number 1,274 shows up…. whaaaaaaaa!

I then go into a fury of checking email and comments and likes and followers – whole crap! How has this happened?! Thank you WordPress for showing me how people found my blog! Freshly Pressed?! What! OMG *girly noises and dancing around the house in pj’s scaring the cats… this goes on for some time* And then I realized I have to wait ALL DAY to tell Andrew about this coolness and how tons of people are sharing in his achievement since I can’t call him at work. Baaah! So there I sat in the quietude of the morning with this thing that felt so big and expanding and connected that it was about to explode the room. And my favorite part of this was that it happened not because of something I did – but because of someone’s story that I shared… and that wonderfully interconnectedness of his story and mine and the whole journey that has meant to much to us.

By the end of the weekend our little post and the blog overall had over 10,000 visits (TEN THOUSAND!). That is a number of people so inconceivably huge-tastic to be connected to for even an iota of time that my only reaction was really just to laugh in lighthearted joy and utter amazement.

Now of course I realize this won’t last – and that probably everyone who’s even been on Freshly Pressed writes a blog entry just like this one afterwards… but do I care if I sound ridiculous? Nope. Unapologetically dramatic is how I roll. I really have no clue if anything like this will ever happen again and I’m just going to bask in it fully and outwardly – with all of you!

So THANK YOU to all of you wonderful shining people who took the time to visit, read and comment… to follow, reblog, and like. It has taken several days, but we’ve read each and every comment you left, and have gotten to see so many cool new blogs we would have never otherwise found! You made a special event in the lives of two people down in Texas even more incredible with all of your kindness! And to think, I almost didn’t post this because I thought it might be cheesy or no one would like it. Just goes to show that anytime we doubt ourselves we should really just take the chance and go for it… because you never know where it will go. =)

All my best!
*s

Andrew has been working tirelessly towards his goal of becoming a flight instructor this past year… at last, today was the big day – the final check ride as it is called. From 8am to around 4pm he taught lessons, answered questions, talked about regulations, worked out scenarios and did a final flight with the chief pilot. Yes, that’s like an 8 hour final exam. Phew! And at the end of this tiring day – which comes at the end of a tiring year – he has passed and is now a Certified Flight Instructor in helicopters.

I can still remember a little over year ago, when this goal seemed so large and so daunting to this person. I remember it wasn’t easy to commit to finishing this last leg of his flight training – and it took some time. I remember my being frustrated and not understanding why he was having such a tough time. I was pushy (oh those old habits..) and he was stressed and we were really quite grouchy with each other. I remember realizing that being pushy was NOT helping a thing – and then learned instead to be supportive and listen to what he really needed from me. And then I remember watching him begin to tackle it (as we always say… how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!). I remember him taking on a full time job and being so full of worry as to how on earth he was going to get all his studying done with work. But he did (while also kicking quite a bit of butt at work too, I might add). And now, on this big day, he is looking back and seeing that he tackled this thing which seemed so immense and insurmountable before.

It’s a beautiful thing to be there when someone achieves something in their lives that they previously did not see themselves capable of. In that achievement, they expand their own view of themselves. They find a new part of who they are and a deep sense of pride, confidence and inner joy radiates from it. It is no doubt inspiring and infectious, and I count myself lucky to have been here to share in it! I’ve watched as he’s pushed himself to his very limits and kept on pushing – only to realize that his true limits are much farther than what he had ever perceived. Here’s to you, Andrew, I am so excited for you as you embark on the newest chapter of your life. In the words of one Dr. Seuss… “Oh! The places we will go!”

Artist shown with several of his sculptures.

Resources:

http://thenewcaferacersociety.blogspot.com/2008/11/art-of-michael-leeds.html?referer=sphere_search

Here’s some more pictures of things I discovered there!

Beautiful, fully restored farm house. Even the interior was fully restored with gorgeous vintage wallpaper and furniture of the era.

Right near the house was a small vegetable garden – I would love to have one like this someday.

I also met a cow. She was a little shy at first…

…but soon was quite curious!

View of the whole barn

The quintessential farm cat decided to befriend me as I wandered around the farm. He made for some wonderful photos!

I dream of one day having a chicken coop – the sound of them clucking was so peaceful.

Rooster!

Sunset over the old farm house as I was leaving

Waving goodbye!

He began on this path by working as a millwright apprentice for Chrystler in the early 2000′s. What began as a job quickly turned into a passion for him, and he was soon welding his own clever creations into reality. He holds several certificates for welding and is constantly improving his craft. And to top it off, he’s donating 10% of all company profits to Home Fur-Ever, where he and his wife adopted their dog Woodson (who is the inspiration for the company name!) as well as a non-profit in Detroit called Lifebuilders. Kudos to you guys – you are definitely doing things right! And now let us see the work!

Oh my word, how awesome is this Samurai warrior?!

Tractor (above) and detail shot (below) – love the texture he added to the body to roughen it up.

So impressed with all the deail on this fire truck!

Berzerker. Based on a character from Max Grundy’s “Out of Order“

Thank you Josh for filling my little about-to-be-beginning mind with grand visions and possibilities!!

Resources:
http://www.browndogwelding.com

http://www.flickr.com/photos/browndogwelding/

I’m happy to announce I saw my first armadillo close-up on this trip! I also learned that they are fast little devils… and that you shouldn’t assume you can just walk up to one, tap it on the shoulder, and ask it for a photo… Well, you can, but this is all you will get… (forgetting to use my zoom lens did not help either).

For next armadillo sighting I had my zoom lens handy (70-200mm). I managed to get a little closer with the right lens in a moment that he stopped to think to himself “oh my gosh! I think that human is following me!” and then promptly ran off. However our lovely winter background of deadness really doesn’t do much to help things..

After another hour or so I came across yet another armadillo! He was foraging for food on the edge of a tree line which thankfully had a rare patch of green soft grass. I quietly sneaked up to him, a little at a time. I was able to get some decent shots of his butt at least… oh animals and their rudeness!

At the closest I was about 6 feet away from him… which is when I learned how hard it is to get a clean close up shot when you’ve got twigs and branches and brush and tall grass all over the place.. this one below was the best of the bunch. The sun was also really harsh and not helping things. I conclude that nature is very inconsiderate.

Right here is where you would be seeing my really gorgeous macro shot of a beautiful golden butterfly sunning it’s wings… however you will not see it because butterflies are really kind of bitches about having their picture taken. Didn’t get a single shot – just as soon as I was almost close enough, they took off. Such a tease. I decided to work with a spider instead, who was a little more accommodating (although not by much).

Mr. spider was about 3-4cm long. I didn’t quite get the focus right – yet another factor to have to consider on top of the issues of ugly natural backgrounds and horrible harsh sunlight.

Later in the day I found a great little pine forest with plenty of mushrooms and pine cones to practice macro photos on (and way more convenience since they don’t move!) I did a little light study on this mushroom.. moving from more frontal light all the way to backlit. It was fun to see how different each direction made the image feel.

I came across this little finch-like bird who was just flitting about on this dead tree by the lake. Finally an animal that is not camera shy! For about 10 minutes I photographed him while he flirted for my camera.. it was definitely a lot of fun. Still working on trying to get the right settings to get clear shots of birds in action… they usually end up looking like strange alien things hovering in the air…

He unfortunately seemed to share the same animal rudeness of the armadillo in mooning me a lot…

I did manage to get a few really pretty shots of this little guy though – slowly he let me get closer. This one below was one of my favorites.

I also learned that cows are boring… especially on flat ground.

I learned that sometimes just when you are coming up on a cool ominous-looking scene of a beach with ravens on it… some stupid kids come walking by noisely and chase off all your subjects.

I learned that sometimes making a shot better is as simple walking around the subject to see if there is a better angle with less clutter…

This last shot was inspired by a similar shot my friend took (mine on the left, hers on the right).. the diagonal shadows must have stuck in my mind, because as soon as I saw them out on the trail I instantly thought of her image and decided to take a version of my own! Thanks Alyshia for getting me inspired for this trip! It was a great learning experience and a lot of fun!!

The more I look at online the more excited I get… I already have lofty dreams of making ginormous metal creations, but when I saw this it just blew me away…

Ok so this one is like the end-all be-all of metal sculptures for me. I love dragons and all things fantasy – and was just in awe when I first stumbled on this sculpture by artist Ricardo Breceda. This fabulous creature is part of a whole series of outdoor metal sculptures by the artist. The collection – titled “Sky Art” – can be found living in the Borrego Valley of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park near San Diego, CA.

Breceda has a very inspiring story about how he became a metal sculptor. Until just a few years ago, he was a construction worker and a boot salesman. An accident ended up revealing to him this hidden talent. It just goes to prove that we should always try new things in our lives – as we never know what we might have a gift for! Great story! I am so inspired!

Resources:

“Sky Art” Metal Sculptures of Borrego Valley – Anza-Borrega Foundation

Ricardo Breceda’s Official Website

Quarterly Projects
I’ve decided to focus on 4 different types of projects quarterly throughout the year. This might mean that I do one large project for the quarter, or many small ones… depending on how things unfold and you know, how badly I procrastinate. ;)

The 4 projects I’m thinking for now are:

- Welding/Metal Sculpture
- Illustration/Drawing
- Needle Felting
- Nature/Land Art

Welding is something I’ve never done and always wanted to do. I’m signed up for a class at a local community college to start January 22nd, so this is where we begin! The others were things from this past year that I fell in love with and wanted more time with. The list could possibly change if I find anything else exciting along the way – but for now this is a good start!

12 Month Barn Series
Alongside that, I’ve decided I also want to focus on photography for a monthly project. I have a barn series that I began a year or so ago that I was really fired up about but never really got off the ground. So the goal here is to trespass onto as many abandoned old properties with barns as I can find!… or hopefully more of the time enter with permission so no one comes after me with a shot gun (this is Texas, after all).

By the end of the year I want to have photographed a full series of a dozen barns, each with a ceiling shot similar to the one below, as well as other supporting angles and details. I’d really like to get a wide range from old abandoned barns to fully functioning newer ones… but we’ll see where the journey takes me.

I will be doing some research on how to create good black and white images too – as there are good and bad ways to achieve it and I’m pretty sure I’m not using the best methods right now. I may also throw in some techniques to focus on (landscape, macro, HDR, etc) from time to time to help me practice in areas I haven’t taken the time to really read up on or practice a ton yet. Pretty excited to revive this project! I have been in love with it since the first ceiling shot I took and look forward to having my first full series of photos done by the end of 2012!

 
Yes, We Will Create!
And that’s still not everything! On top of my personal creative projects, I’m spending this year trying to get a creative community called We Will Create off the ground. It’s a place to share any and all sorts of creative projects – big or small, long or short. I’m hoping together we can create a real place of open support for each other in all our creative endeavors… a place for anyone who is looking to add a bit more creativity in their lives and wants some friends to do it with! In the much bigger picture, I dream of this becoming a community that reaches millions… where you can explore or join various groups and have specific communities related to your interests (photography, cooking, living green, painting, charity work, etc) as well as joining other groups for 365 projects, 12 month projects, 30 day projects, etc. It’s definitely far from anything that big (yet), but I believe in it a heck of a lot, so I’m doing all I can to get it going. I figure worst case is that a few more people in the world are inspired by each other, and I learn a lot about how to NOT make a community site.

If you actually made it this far into my novel of a post… please take a moment to check us out at wewillcreate.ning.com and if you like what you see, join us or share with your family and friends!