Welcome to my blog Upstate Girl, (a.k.a Follow Your Bliss Part II), I am an independently published author. This blog is all about writing and the stuff that inspires me to write, the joys and obstacles that come along with the writer's life, and my fascination with the psychology of people and what makes them tick...the human condition, as is...and my love for words, playing with them and making sense of them...and I throw in a few photos from my acre of the world just to make things pretty...sometimes there are things I have no words for, only pictures will do.

*Copyright notice* All photos, writing, and artwork are mine (
© Laura J. Wellner), unless otherwise noted, please be a peach, if you'd like to use my work for a project or you just love it and must have it, message me and we'll work out the details...it's simple...JUST ASK, please.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Elemental...

Butters at 18 weeks...he's mesmerized by a fly so he was standing still...very still...
 The bitty little kitty is growing up, not so bitty any more, he's so handsome and sweet! He's running around being silly this morning, and was playing in the trash bucket under my desk just a bit ago (I did take pictures and a video, we'll have to see how those turned out!)


I just love this little blue stone...the leaf got there on its own...

I don't have an oak tree anywhere on the acre, but a leaf dropped in...blew in actually...

Yup, I'm still photographing the dried weeds and grass on the stones...been lovin' that...
The fog on Thursday morning was beautiful...

Yes, we have snow...it came Wednesday night, it's still here and will linger up here in the higher elevations until it warms up again, down lower about a half mile away there's green...we're just special, I guess...this is typical for us, no shock, no surprise, we've had snow storms on Mother's Day, flurries in the air right up until May 20th...it's not "safe" until Memorial Day to plant anything delicate...it's just been a long winter...

I felt bad for this poor little robin with his fluffed out feathers...he didn't much like me lookin' at him either...
 
The fog in the trees...

My old friend Maple Tree, touched with fog and morning light...

 It's been a busy week, I spent too much time on my feet on Monday-Wednesday and have paid for it in spades, I had the dreaded sciatic nerve pain and it kept me in bed most of Thursday (of course, it didn't stop me from walking the dog, but the poor dude needed to pee and poo, so I brought the camera along like I always do!)  Wretched pain...I slathered on Voltaren, used my electro-stim TENS unit, and stayed off my feet as much as possible. And of course, it triggered FMS pain too, so...when it rains it pours. Although I'm much better, My legs are still tingly and on the edge of "one false move", which is an on pins n' needles existence, so I'm going to continue to take it easy this weekend and hope that everything will calm down...

Our book is finally finished, printed, and beautiful!

Our little art book arrived in the mail on Tuesday afternoon, we were pleasantly surprised how gorgeous it is...we had to make a few adjustments to some things, but still it's lovely...I'm sure there will be other small things we'll decide to tweak over the course of time, but for the most part, the book is DONE and we brought it with us to last night's reception at Moonlighting to show it to our guests, and everyone thought it was mighty nice...it's a fine achievement to put together such a project, it was a bit overwhelming at times, but yet, not...hard work and many years in the making!

Here he is, in the trash bucket having a good time being a kitten...gotta love the little squeezin's!

Sunday, March 20, 2011

First day of spring...

Bone of the Earth broken by the winter elements, 3/19/2011
A Woolly Bear, 3/19/2011 (unusually marked, hardly any black on his rear end!)

Crow Feather, 3/19/2011

An old fossil, 3/19/2011


Dried grass and weeds on the stone wall, 3/19/2011

Rust, 3/19/2011

Leaves weeds and stone, 3/19/2011

Butters sunning himself on the first day of spring
It's hard to photograph this little clown...he rarely sits still (unless sleeping)...it is also hard to type captions when the little wiggle-worm is in my lap!

...and he loves to kiss the camera
A lovely weekend with sunshine, a giant moon in the night sky, resting, painting, writing a little, wandering around the acre photographing the mess winter made of things, but finding beauty in the flattened out grasses and leaves, rotten wood and rusty bits...all very enjoyable...

Sunday, March 13, 2011

March debris collages...

Inside (bark), 3/11/2011
Debris Collage, 3/11/2011
Husk (wild cucumber), 3/11/2011
Emerging from snow, 3/11/2011
Stone and Grass, 3/11/2011
Collage, 3/11/2011
Rotten (wood), 3/11/2011
Collage, 3/11/2011
I went out for about a half hour walking the acre yesterday with my little point n' shoot, and found tons of things emerging from the melting snow to photograph! Over 100 images later, I sat processing the good ones, deleting the blurry ones, and muttering "Oooo, that's cool, oooo, pretty! (Euuu, that one has bunny poo.)" A very productive bit of tromping around. It's snowing again this morning, but just a dusting, I'm going to wander over to the flooded places in the low places to look for ice formations...the acre has been busy with migrating birds arriving, the blackbirds are very noisy! It feels good hearing them...spring is coming!

My Fred and I should be wrapping up the last go through of our art book, I've made some minor changes, and there's one photo of a small painting that I want to replace...very exciting putting together our own art book...

Other news, we're participating in the CNY Art Showcase auction on April 8th, 2011, which is an annual fundraiser put together by the Rotary Club of Eastwood to raise money for various organizations, this year their focus is Saint Joseph's Hospital...the catalog arrived on Friday and my little photo that I'm donating this year is featured on the front cover! I selected the photo and a drawing for the fundraiser.

My Conversation with Georgia, 2010
Lumina #2, 2008

And...my Fred and I have been asked to be featured artists on a local television show "Bridge Street", the week of the auction...we'll see how that goes...I'll post a link once it's done. (Fun stuff!)

Sunday, March 6, 2011

March is roaring in like a lion...

Emerging from Winter Snow, 3/5/2011

Debris, 3/5/2011

Dried grass on stone, 3/5/2011

Ground Collage, leaves, 3/5/2011

Ground Collage, debris,  3/5/2011

Leaf Lace, 3/5/2011

A March Collage, debris from last Autumn, 3/5/2011
I always forget (conveniently) how windy the month of March can be...ugh! We've had another round of melting, so our 'glacier' has receded up the driveway a little more, and there's quite a bit of water sitting in the low areas of the acre and around about...the sump-pump is working over time to keep the basement dry...rain turned into sleet, sleet turned into snow, and we have a bit of fog too, so it's a typical day for the time of year... I guess it's being recorded as one of the snowiest winters with 64 days of steady snow and deep bone chilling cold...I know I'm tired of it, and will be glad when it's done. The red wing blackbirds have come back to my feeder and I spied a chipmunk yesterday, and the tips of daffodils are poking out of the ground this morning from a spot that was still under snow yesterday, so spring is coming...we mustn't lose heart. I did get outside with my little point and shoot camera yesterday before it turned miserable, and photographed the snow-flattened debris uncovered by this latest melt...collages of leaves and grass...wabi-sabi stuff...