It has been pretty hot and muggy after the storms.  Usually this happens when our natural air conditioning, our island trade winds stops blowing.  Our trade winds usually blow down from the north and north east and that is why the north eastern part of our Island is called the windward side.  Down wind from the windward side, we have the leeward side on the south western part of the Island.

Every once in a while we get winds coming up from the south and south west.   These are our Kona winds.  They bring up vog from the Big Island and increase problems associate with the vog, including respiratory problems and headaches.  I think the Kona winds have been blowing.

But, that is why we love our trades!

I Paint

It was nice hearing from my friend Ellie. I haven't talked to her in a while, but she had heard about the storms and sent a concerned text to me a few days ago. She has always been so thoughtful. She's a bright light in this world.

Anyways, way back when we use to hang out on the ebay artist discussion boards together, and talk about laugh about all those thing we held dear, she shared a picture of her dog Sparkie. I painted Sparkie in the above painting, and everytime I see this picture it reminds me of those conversations from long ago.

The Stinging Rain of Iselle

If I am reading the noaa forcast correctly, it is about the time when the eye of Iselle is nearing the closest it will come to our Islands, around 125 miles or so to the south.  The driving, stinging rain has come, but it is intermittent.  As I write the rainfall goes from  light drizzles to hard and driving.  The sun is even peeking through at times.  

It is windy, but so far, not strong enough to cause too much concern.  But I know it could pick up.  The weather on Google has the wind at 29 mph.  It would be nice to have a wind gauge, right about now.   My "make do" wind gauge is my guava tree in the back yard.   When the branches sway wildly I think to myself, "yes, it is pretty windy".  But If the branches were to start breaking off and flying away it will put me on high winds alert.

So far my Guava tree has weathered the storm.

My package arrived in the mail from China!  I know that there are people out there who don't like to buy made in China products, but I actually buy directly from China vendors through aliexpress.com.

For about $6 I picked up a clip and 3 different types of lenses to experiment with on my iPhone and iPad.  The set I bought came with a fish eye lens, a Wide angle lens, and a macro lens. My daughter already ran off with the fish eye lens, so I guess I will be testing them out later.

I also have my eye on a 12x lens, but have a hard time imagining that I could keep the iPhone still enough to get a good picture.  Still, I might not be able to resist.

Let the picture taking begin!

Volleyball has taken over my life.  Funny thing is, I don't even play the game.  My daughter loves the game, and I have grown to love to watching the game.

Last week was tryout for her school team.  This week, she is already on a break from school, so I signed her up for 4 days of volleyball camp at the University.  On top of that I signed her up for two days of clinics which we hustle to after volleyball camp.  This is in addition to the clinic she is taking on the weekend for a couple of months.  So that works out to 5 days of volleyball this week.

I know it sounds like a crazy schedule.  When we were chatting about my daughter's full  volleyball schedule, one of my friends once told me,  "You drank the Kool Aid!"  But I actually enjoy it.  It has been a rewarding experience to watch my daughter grow as she learns the game.

Team sports teaches dedication, perseverance, and a slew of great life skills on and off the court or field.

Yes, I drank the Kool Aid!

Yikes! My iPad Screen is Broken :(

To repair a broken iPad screen you need YouTube (or ifixit.com), around $20, eBay, a heat gun, and a little jack-of-all trades skill.

A couple of nights ago I picked up my iPad only to find that the screen had shattered.  I'm not sure how it happened.  I would think that I would have noticed it was broken the last time I used it, but I didn't.  And I have two suspicious teenagers who I have marked as persons of interest in this mystery.

Lucky for me, my brother has experience fixing a shattered iPad screen.  He watched a few YouTube videos, and ended up repairing an iPad dropped by our niece.  Did I tell you that I love YouTube?  It is my window to the world.

Anyways, I purchased a repair kit on eBay for that repair, so I spent my time on eBay and purchased another kit that included tools and the home button.  The tools from the last kit were plastic and got bent out of shape removing the screen, so I do suggest purchasing the kit with tools each time you do a repair.

My temporary repair kit was a roll of duck tape!

My favorite crafting item

I have admitted to myself long ago that I am not a very crafty person. But, I haven't given up and still made my own cards and tags from time to time.  I bought a Cricuit, but hardly ever use it.  Combined with the fact that I lost its power cord in our last move, it just sits in the cabinet.

But I recently purchased a Cuddlebug.  It really has changed how often I make my own cards and tags.  It makes beautiful and professional looking cards, tags, and even envelopes.  It embosses and die cuts and does not need a power cord. One of my friends saw a finished tag in a gift we gave her daughter and a week later she had ordered the Cuddlebug from Amazon.com.  She loves it too!

+shopping
+crafting
+cardmaking

Photo Books

Digital photos are nice, but it is just not the same as being able to hold a photograph in your hands.  My daughter recently traveled to Anaheim with her Volleyball team, and we decided to make a photo book for all her teammates after the trip.  We included group shots, and photo spread action shots that spanned 2 pages, and tried to pick photos with everyone in them.

My favorite place to make photo books is blurb.com.  I have order many books from blurb.com, but because we didn't have time to wait for shipping to have this book ready in time for the Volleyball banquet, I also bought the book in .pdf for around $5 and printed them up ourselves.  The teammates and parents seemed to love them and we had many questions on how we made them.

At blurb.com, you download an application called Booksmart, which guides you into making your book.  You upload the photos you want to use to the program and can drop them into standard layouts and photo spreads, or you can customize your own layouts.  I find it easy to use.

We are still waiting on our books we made for our family with photos from our trip.  Can't wait to receive them!