You can go to Beach Treasure Holiday Photos #18 to find the post that corresponds with all these cow photos. I had a lot of fun trying to find different ways to take artsy photos of all these artsy cows. Here's a website to find out about the Cow Parade. And another website about Cow Parades in other sites.

Edinburgh is such a literary treasure, it's quite appropriate that the first cow we stumbled upon was a literary cow.

I think this cow was named "Summer". Here she is longing to join the other petals in the flower bed beyond. Please forgive the fuzziness of a lot of these photos. My new camera wasn't a big fan of low light settings and I couldn't tell that on the small camera screen. I didn't find out until I was back home viewing the photos on my computer.

Er, both William and this cow are giving me somewhat disturbing looks.

Here we have a cow on her way home from a trip to Edinburgh's free fine art museum. She looks like she was very inspired by the visit.

Here's a very modern art cow coming....

And another more pragmatic cow going.....

Where is she going? I don't know, but I'm sure she knows as she's obviously bringing a map.

Finished? Only for today. There are plenty of cow photos left for your viewing pleasure. I'll try to get moooooore cows uploaded tomoooooorrow.

Moooooooo.

Howdy folks - how is everyone doing? Working on all those homemade holiday gifts? Like I am?

HAHAHAHAA! That last little bit - "like I am" - that was really funny!

Nah, lately I'm not doing much creatively. I spent the first half of the month stuck in a circular angst - To nano or not to nano. Round and round and round. With occasional soirees to the keyboard with a bit of novel writing to try to keep up just in case I decided to choose to nano. ARGH! Grrrr! Gnashing of teeth. Wailing of spirit. There was a lot of staying up late (and by late I mean late for me, and late for me means practically dawn. Which of course led to a lot of sleeping at inappropriate hours of the day and night. Well, not night. But the day part.

Conversation with Sam yesterday when he called and woke me up at 11:30 am:

Sam: Hi.
Me: (trying to sound like I was already awake because he'd called yesterday at 12:30 pm and I'd admitted he'd woken me up and he'd lectured me about still being asleep in the middle of the day) Hi Sam.
Sam: Were you still asleep?
Me: (short pause) No.
Sam: Are you lying to me?
Me: (another short pause) Yes.
Sam: Why?
Me: Because I'm don't want another lecture on being asleep in the middle of the day.
Sam: So, now I've got to lecture you about lying instead!? Geeze woman! What am I going to do with you!?
Me: So, what do you want?....

Anyway....

Part of me wanted to write - holiday projects, cooking, cleaning, showering, laundry be damned! Another part of me was completely certain that if I didn't try to tackle a huge writing project at this particular point in time, I'd dive joyously into finishing all those projects I've somehow not managed to finish all year. And yet another part of me, perhaps the smartest part of me, figured that both the other voices were full of baloney and that no matter what I said I wanted to do, I'd probably end up doing things about the same as I always have, frittering away half of each day doing things like eating a bag of Smarties, watching Wheel of Fortune, cleaning up after the cats, fetching fast food for my teenager, and blogging (or other internet activities). Which is, basically, what I've been doing, although in theory I haven't made up my mind yet - that way I can't be said to be doing nothing because what I'm actually doing is PONDERING, which is an activity that is almost invisible to the naked eye.

I did go to an art showing the other night, Thursday to be exact, mainly by accident. I was cleaning up a pile of papers that had accumulated on the dining room table and came across an invitation to the showing at our local arts council. It said the showing was Thursday, Nov. 16, from 5-7 pm. And it just happened to be Thursday, Nov. 16, 5:15 pm.

I asked hubby if he wanted to come with me but he was happily wrapped up in his quilt, on the couch, with his tea and Rosie. So off I went by myself. It was a nice showing - a bit of pottery, a few painters, some photographers - all artists that work in some capacity for our local community college. There was food. There was drink. There was live music. Pretty fancy schmancy (or would that be artsy fartsy) for lil' ol' Susanville.

All teasing aside, it was nice. I particularly liked one artist's paintings. Vibrant colors. Really captured the idea of "light". I chatted with folks, some I knew, some I didn't. It was both relaxing and inspiring. It made me feel like I wanted to come home and create. Or take a few art classes at the college. Did you know I am one class short of getting my art degree? Of course now it's been so long that all my acumulated college credit is completely worthless. Well, not worthless to me. But as far as the college is concerned, it might as well have been classes taken back in the Dark Ages. So, maybe I'm not terribly serious about the art classes part. But it did make me want to come home and create. Okay, OKAY! It made me want to come home and watch Ugly Betty and Supernatural and eat popcorn do a jigsaw puzzle and read some blogs and a little bit of Neil Gaiman and sleep in until almost noon and then create. (No. I did not create. If you want to know what I did the next day instead, read my other blog.)

One more thing before I go back to watching comedians on BBC - I stumbled upon this little art video on YouTube and thought it was kinda fun to watch.

Oh, one more thing! And this one redeems me. I am working on a new knitting project. I can't give out any details because it's gonna be a gift and I don't want to spoil the surprise, but hey, I am doing a little creative something. Whew.

More castle photos to go with Holiday Photos #16 over at Beach Treasure. One can never have enough photos of rocks and moss, eh?

They had recreationists performing the day we visited. I liked the new through the window of the old.

Old castle, the bay in the background. A tiny glimpse of a banner in the bottom lefthand corner.

The birds took advantage of every nook and cranny.

Back when the castle would have been in use, the large concentric rings you see in the sides of this tower would have been where the wooden floor/ceilings would have been.