A new doodle!

This is an iPad cover that I decorated as a gift for a milestone birthday for my lifelong friend.  

I've written before on this blog about my compulsive doodling.   I've doodled on everything from purses to bowling shoes and an iPad cover for myself.  My friend loved my iPad cover so I thought making one for her, with a few personal touches, would be the perfect gift.  I hope she likes it!  

Next blog post will be part 2 about my state conference and the workshops I taught, so stay tuned!  It's been a busy couple of weeks, but if haven't forgotten you, readers!

Testing 1-2-3

Playing with the iPad Blogger app as i watch the Olympics but I don't think I like it (the app, that is. I like the Olympics just fine.) Have you posted to your blog from an iPad? There doesn't seem to be any way to move things around etc so I doubt I'll post from the iPad too often.

Meanwhile I put up a couple of posts last week but it's been a little lonely here in bloggy-land. Nobody much has been reading or responding to those posts, so I'm wondering, are you still out there, dear readers? Or has this dinosaur been abandoned? Or perhaps those photos of me in my younger days were too scary?

Anyhow here's some photos from fooling around in the photo booth app. I wanted to post some images from my sketchbook app but I can't seem to figure out how to retrieve the images in blogger.

How I spent a hot muggy summer day & some fun 'vintage' photos

This (above) is how we spent the glorious day yesterday. (That's not me in the photos but it is my family.)

This (below) is how I expected to spend today.

That's the magnificent Saratoga Racetrack, in my hometown just 20 minutes away. I'm not a gambler, but once a summer I meet up here with an old union leadership friend. Our friendship began when we met in 1995 at a statewide training conference for new local teacher union presidents, and has continued ever since. But with expected severe thunderstorms (that never happened here) and hot humid muggy weather, we've postponed until later in the week.

I also expected to be surprising my childhood BFF (who lives in England but comes home to see family) with a visit for dinner, also in Saratoga, at the invitation of her kid sister.

In the photo above, that's Annie on the left and me on the right at maybe 5 & 6 years old (she's younger), and on the left below at maybe 17 and 16 (this time I'm the angry one on the left) and finally at 36 and 35 (I'm convex - 7 months pregnant with dyed hair; she's concave and beautiful).

And here's the kid sister at approximately age 10 when Annie and I were 19 & 20.
But sadly, kid sister is having serious back trouble and the visit is temporarily called off tonight. But Annie will be in the states for a bit and we'll catch up, just not by surprise.

And here's what I did today instead: (sorry for sideways photos)

I cleaned and froze blueberries that I picked a few days ago. Then I went out back to my hubby's wonderful garden and picked chives and basil. I chopped and froze chives, and I made the basil into pesto and froze it in these rectangular ice cube trays. Now I can have fresh herbs in the winter, and fresh berries too! After chopping and chopping and processing etc, my house smells like heaven - the aroma of basil/chives/garlic all together. Of course I saved some of the fresh pesto for dinner tonight! YUM.

And in between all the slicing and dicing and washing and processing, I took turns at my latest obsessions on my iPad:

If you like to play too, let me know! I'm seriously hooked on both. I'm also playing Scramble with Friends (kind of like Boggle) but so far only with my son and he's seriously KILLING me and I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

iPad users - a little advice please?

OK, so this photo doesn't have anything to do with this post. I just drive past this sad little guy every day and yesterday had to stop and take his photo. He looks so lonely and bewildered. If I wasn't afraid of getting arrested I'd paint him a companion on the unpainted barrel.

ANYHOW...
I've had my iPad for a little more than a week now and I love it, but I'm still figuring out exactly what I want to use it for. For starters, as a lifelong Scrabble addict, I've got several games of Words With Friends going and it has reinvigorated some otherwise stale friendships. (I love that there's a place where you can send little chat messages while you are playing.) Cool. I'm learning who among my acquaintances is a good WWF competitor and who I don't really want to play with (it's no fun to totally smoke someone). And I'm dabbling in a couple of sketch/doodle apps, and loving the ease of getting on the internet, and mostly doing a bit of exploring my options. I'm a newbie.

But there are two things I do on my laptop that I would like to be able to do on the iPad, but so far I have not been successful with either: posting to this blog, and visiting Pinterest. I tried apps for both that I think must have been meant for the iPhone, since the profile was small on the screen. If you do either of these things on your iPad, can you tell me which apps you use?

Any other app favorites you'd like to mention that you haven't told me about previously? Or little hints that might make me go "AHA!"?

And if you are a good Scrabble/Words With Friends competitor, and want to play with me, let me know. There's always room/time for another game!

Buying myself an iToy

I've never owned any sort of iThing - no iPhone no iPod no iAnything, and I don't have a Mac. I do not have a smart phone, and I've never downloaded an app. But as a retirement gift, from me, to me, I've decided I want to buy myself what appears to be the ultimate iToy, the latest iPad. My laptop is clunky, and I'd like something that will travel easily with me. I plan to buy it THIS WEEK.
I know, you're probably wondering why I posted a book cover here. Some of you other former hippie-types like me might have also been fans of the author Richard Brautigan (he was a major favorite of mine - quirky and adorable). In this book, In Watermelon Sugar, written in 1968, there's a place called iDeath which is sort of a central gathering location in a communal sort of place. It's an odd little book (not my favorite of his books; if you've never read Brautigan and want to give his books a try, don't start with this one. There's much better introductions to his weird world). Anyhow, I can't help but wonder whether Steve Jobs was a fan of Brautigan, and whether there's any connection between all of Steve Jobs' iThings and Richard Brautigan's iDeath.

But back to the iPad. Here's what I want to know:

• Do you have an iPad?
• What do you use it for?
• Will I learn to use it easily?
• Do you have favorite apps?
• Any advice about accessories I should definitely have and ones I won't need?