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.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Elemental...

 
Slate, 7/20/2011

Wall and Sky, 7/21/2011

Discarded weeds, 7/23/2011

Discarded weeds, 7/23/2011

A Flutter-bye, 7/23/2011

Leaf in shadow, 7/23/2011

Summer Lilies, 7/23/2011

"J", rusted metal found by my Fred along the railroad tracks, 7/24/2011

A collection of railroad spikes (also found by my Fred), 7/24/2011 (The shadows are SOOOO COOL!)
 It's been wicked hot here, as it's been everywhere else it seems, I heard we hit a record of sorts, 100 on Thursday, which is highly unusual for Upstate New York...the sky has been a brilliant blue for many days, we got some rain today, but it's been too long coming...
Opening Night at Szozda Gallery, 7/22/2011

My Fred and I had an opening of our exhibition on Friday...more pics n' details at my art blog Follow Your Bliss...

I spent much of the weekend photographing things, looking at everything, reading and making a few changes to a chapter or two in Fishbowl,  and napping (nothing finer than falling asleep in a comfy chair on a breezy porch on a hot day)...I've had a busy week full of many accomplishments at work and personally, and through much of it I struggled with the FMS trash-compactor feeling...yeah, that's the best way to describe the wretched overall 'I feel like shit' feeling that I get from time to time, it's a warning that I need to slow down. So in spite of all of this wonderful stuff happening, I can still feel like shit and get through it with a smile. I think I can do this as long as what I'm doing is making me happy, that's all I can say...my art, my writing, my photos, my garden, my Fred, our son, my five cats and one dog named Max keep me going no matter how shitty I feel.

detail of one of my paintings, Evening, Blue and Gold, 2010-2011, acrylic on watercolor canvas, 24 x 18 inches

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Sunday morning...

Fragment, (Old Chimney Brick) 6/28/2011 (previously posted at From my acre of the world...Tumblr site, 7/3/2011)

Fragment, 6/28/2011

Fragment, 6/28/2011
I love the variety of colors and textures of old bricks, their surfaces eroded by time, they’re so beautiful to me. The old chimneys of our farmhouse were taken apart when we had the new roof put on the house, there were four of them originally, three were no longer in use or attached to anything and falling apart, when the last one started to lean a few years ago, we had to take it down to replace it with a nice new brick chimney…I’ve saved the old bricks, line gardens with them, their fragments fill bottoms of planters for drainage, I re-use what I can…occasionally, I’ll find a chunk or two under a bush or tucked in the weeds, it’s a mystery to me how these things travel, but they do get around the acre…

I've been working my way through the final chapters of Drinking from the Fishbowl, plagued by self-doubts while not working on it and then perfectly happy with it while I am...typical, nothing new.  I've become snagged on the last chapter, have practically re-written it in the places that needed work and suddenly what was once a fragment of a thought took on a life of its own, and I'm on the fence about cutting out original material, which is still valid, but does it belong to this chapter any more? If I cut it out, will I miss it? It's funny how I've cut this book to ribbons over the years, and cringed at cutting things that I fear that I will miss, only to find that no, I don't (maybe the more recent cuts made last Fall I still look for.) Originally, it was my plan to have this book ready by Fall 2011 to publish, but it's not looking likely, after this latest go around, I've made up my mind to set it aside for a month or two, work on something else...(so she sez)...or I could start over and get back into the thick of it while it's still fresh in my mind and I think I know what I want to do (cutting more from it!) But...but...but... ugh, I can make myself go crazy fussing over it. I've been taking it slow with this one, it's size has always been a troubling factor...it's currently hovering at about 525 pages (standard ms double spaced, 12 point), where before it was closer to 800 than it was necessary, so I've taken it in hand and compacted it to a more manageable size, but still, it is a handful.

Layers, 7/3/2011 (posted on From my acre of the world...)

A hungry caterpillar, 7/3/2011
The acre has been busy with life, things growing and little barn swallow peas fresh from their pods lined up on the power line leading to the garage, learning to fly, growing their swallowtails...lots of flutter-bys, and the baby crows, although fledged and as big as their parents are still fussing and demanding, whiny little things! (Pitiful baby cries.) The Pileated woodpecker loves our half-dead tree on the corner of the back driveway entrance, I watched him this morning hammering away, throwing wood chips around (for once he didn't take off when I came along with Max!) Poor Max was having wood chips fall onto his back while he sniffed the bushes under the tree. Unfortunately, I never have my camera with me when the big bird is around, one of these days I'll get a photo...well, shoot, I thought I had more photos of the garden, but I guess I haven't downloaded them yet...another post for another time...

A few hours later...I just finished re-reading the last chapter of Drinking from the Fishbowl and after a few adjustments, a cut and paste from here to there, I think it's done . I'll read it again in a few days to let the dust settle...but I believe it's how it should be- oh happy day!.