Its been a while

sorry bout that. you know how it goes.
where did we leave off. Oh yeah
DD and i did go to the Smithsonian Naturalist Center. Bad day to go though. They were gearing up for their annual 2 week cleaning (before the hoards of kids start to descend on field trips). Many of the larger animals were already covered with plastic in preparation (although they told me they'd later remove the coverings to vacuum the fur... sounds icky but ya gotta watch out for bugs i'm told). The employees were very helpful and welcoming but DD and i could not help but feel we were in the way. We stayed for an hour. My favorite sketch was of a stone crab but it isn't anything i want to share here. suffice it to say i'm a bit rusty. DD however wasn't. The kid is talented is all i can say. She sketched in minutes the essence of several animals. i could go steal her sketchbook and scan in some drawings but i don't know if she'd appreciate it. Also, I hate to interrupt her at the moment. She's working on homework - either pre-calculus or chemistry and it took a little prodding to get her going, on a Saturday, with the homework.
Earlier today we went on a hunt for a camera for DD. She's taking photography in school and she needed a manual camera. In my day that meant a 35mm. Now its a bit different. Even the Nikon we finally settled on had auto and manual modes. A most cool camera i must say. Oh whilst i have been away (from you all) i also purchased a new digital camera. i think i mentioned my camera died while on vacation. The new one is quite slim and pretty - has a manual feature which i'm looking forward to playing with - it suits me just fine - not too fancy or spensive.
It seems lately i've only gotten to work on work- related things. I've got a 2 page spread on my drawing table right now that is for a class I'm doing at the end of the month. Same materials as the class dictates with a bit of my own twist - and it has pictures (which the class samples don't have naturally.) i think it helps to see these layouts with real photos instead of imagining how they'll look like when they're finished.
But i stopped working on that because today i needed a birthday card. I'm going to a luncheon for my friend's 40th birthday tomorrow. I'd bought some of my new favorite patterned papers - My Minds Eye Signature Suite. Gorgeous stuff and i know my friend also loves it so...
I used Purple Onion Designs alphas on that card and the one i made for an online friend, Michelle (its supposed to be her adorable beagle, Macy)
well darn. i've been trying to upload the pics of the cards for 20 minutes now. i'm gonna post this and hopefully post the cards later. gotta run