They're my favorite Birkenstock's and they need repair. I found many repair services online - some authorized, some not, offering a dizzying array of options. Took this picture to send to one discussing my concerns and asking what repairs they would advise.

Can you think back to a pair of shoes you owned that were beyond repair that you wish you still had?

I'm happy that I can have these repaired, but most likely it will cost more than their original price.

We went to a County Commissioners' Meeting tonight to hear varying opinions about gun control. It was uplifting to see how many more people were there supporting the ban of assault weapons than those who were there to defend their Second Amendment Rights. (The clock on the screen was very faint. It indicated the remaining time each speaker had.)

Read this and weep for our country:

http://truth-out.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=3079%3Agoodbye-to-all-that-reflections-of-a-gop-operative-who-left-the-cult

Will we ever get our manufacturing base back?

This area is sending me notice that it's time to stop playing with images, and straighten up a little. (Now where did I put that wall hanging that said "Creative people don't have neat homes"?)

Does sporting a red ring around your lens make your heart and ego swell with pride?

Does the sight of a red ring on someone else's lens make you green with envy?

Start studying!

There are marvelous lenses out there for the finding!

When the Canon ef-s 55-250 lens first came out I was very surprised by the excellent quality of the images, but I wanted for the lens to prove itself first, and it really has. A rating of 8.9 on Fred Miranda's Lens Forum is nothing to sneeze at.

I still didn't need it, but a member of my Digipets Yahoo group posted some pictures she had taken with it and they were way better than what I'd been seeing. It was obvious that her Photoshop skills tweaked the images to perfection.

So...still determined not to give in to yet another lens, I took a peek at the specifications on the B & H website. Ah....it weighed so little! How nice, I thought, it would be to have a lens with a little bit more reach than my 70-200 f/4L and one that would fit entirely into my favored Adorama Slinger case...and one that weighed 12.8 ounces less. My shoulder was excited about less drag on it.

The lens arrived yesterday and although it lacks usm (you can't focus manually while you are in autofocus mode, but must move the switch on the lens to mf) and the focusing sounds more Volkswagen than BMW, the image quality makes it a winner in my book...and I shouldn't forget the fact that is has image stabilization, which the 700-200 f/4L lacks.

In the summer I put Beegie on a diet because she was looking and feeling quite pudgy.

Over the weekend a member of my Digipets Yahoo Group asked a question about making a collage in Photoshop (which we've since learned is really a montage - according to what she wanted to do). I started reading tutorials, as she did as well, and made many attempts to get something I liked.

Went off onto another tangent and put some of the steps into this image. The background was a 7D shot and Beegie was captured with a Sony DSC F717 (MY BAD - I had originally stated this was taken with my Panasonic LX3 and then noticed the picture below in my PBlog.)

Once a year I make a great sacrifice and prepare a turkey. Hard to get out of this unfavored task since my supermarket will give me a "free" turkey if I spend $50 a week for six weeks. Unfortunately, they do not provide a cook for its preparation.

Well...at least there are 13 portions left for my husband's hiking sandwiches (or a hot meal), shown here vacuum-sealed.

I wonder if I should have posted instead a picture of the tipped over drippings cascading down the cabinets, or the juices overflowing the cutting board.

It wasn't all bad. I tried something new, bacon slices on the skin to keep it moist while it roasted. Best part was munching on a few of those when I took the turkey out of the oven...and my husband did the carving and cleanup.

I know she didn't like wire hangers, but what would she think of these?

when this female pileated woodpecker arrived for her evening nibble at the suet mix I had been putting in the tree stump on my deck. She seemed very puzzled that it was no longer there, and hung around a long time, maybe hoping it would magically reappear.

I'm feeling very guilty for the enforced dietary restriction!

I had to clear away the bird feeding paraphernalia because my vegetable plants have been put into large containers on the deck and leaving bird, squirrel and raccoon attracting feeders out there would make those plants vulnerable.

There's a cavity in that stump and this male pileated woodpecker has been dipping for the contents, which I've filled with a homemade "suet" mix of Crisco, peanut butter and cornmeal. I've also had a female pileated visiting. (She doesn't have the white stripe extending back from the beak.) Many insect eating birds have visited the cavity in this log. It sure has made the winter pass quickly watching the visitors it has attracted.

but...I can sit comfortably on my couch with my elbows on my knees bracing the 5lb 4oz weight of my 40D + 100-400 IS lens as I wait for birds to land on my cut-off log. (Like these: http://www.pbase.com/image/109419329 )

Well it's been fifteen days since I placed the sawn-off tree trunk on a table outside and while occasionally I would see a bird on it, between the time I reached for the camera and arrived at the window, the bird would disappear.

Today, I finally outwitted a bluebird. I think adding sunflower seeds to the suet atracted a greater variety of birds, so the spot became more attractive.

This was shot through my kitchen window. (I'm going to have to figure how to get a darker colored suet mix - it's always overexposed if I want the bird exposed properly!)

I'm finally cutting the recipe following umbilical cord!

It all started because I picked up a package of dumpling wrappers in the Korean market. After looking at the package in the fridge for two weeks I decided I just had to use them. Checked through several recipes and just didn't have all the ingredients I needed, so I decided to invent. Wound up sautéing the following chopped ingredients: cabbage, chicken tender, ginger, green onions and garlic, to which I added a little sugar, drizzle of mirin, sesame oil and soy sauce. Then put a spoonful of the mix into the middle of the dumpling skin (which I often see in my supermarket as well as the Korean market), pressed it closed with a dumpling press and fried it in about an inch of canola oil in my wok. Served with both Thai Chili Sauce and/or a dip of soy sauce, rice vinegar and a bit of sugar. (The Food Saver has nothing to do with the dumplings. It just sits there on the counter.) Be adventurous. Experiment with your food. You never know what you'll come up with!

No pillowy hills of snow or icicles hanging ominously from too-weighted down tree branches. Our winter has wimped its way along, with no stunning photo ops.

How many daffodils have I snapped at? I really don't know, but I sure do appreciate their appearance and the promise they bring.

Must candidates spend millions to get elected?

It didn't work for Romney.

Now Hillary is running out of money.

I can't fathom how campaign financing is allowed to explode to these astronomical expenditures.

Our country's entire electoral system needs a huge overall.

I needed to vent!

I was in the midst of devouring Ms. Geddes "A Labor of Love", her very inspiring autobiography, when I stopped for a moment to rub my eyes and laid my eyeglasses on one of her images.

I heartily encourage those of you who are passionate about your developing your photographic eye and mindset to read this book.

Just appreciating the bonus I get from putting my Christmas Cactus (schlumbergera)outside for the summer. Various plants throughout the house have graced us with blooms for weeks. This one is just starting.

Standard joke to this day is when we go into frantic cleaning mode it's because guests are coming. This picture was taken over 25 years ago. I have just finished scanning the majority of pictures from six albums I kept up when the kids were small, preparing over three hundred 800 pixel x 480 pixel files (many of which have two pictures on them) to view on a digital photo frame. It has been a real treat putting Photoshop skills to work to resurrect severely overexposed (from internal flash) and faded images (from non-archival albums). I would like to encourage you to scan your old photos NOW and archive them in several places. The originals have probably lost quality and will continue to do so.

Were you all hot and bothered about the Canon 40D and then had your bubble burst by the Nikon D300? I know I was...but I decided to put new camera purchases on hold and rediscover my Canon A610, a digicam gem that was sulking in the drawer. Took this with Auto White Balance, low sharpening, ISO 200, a few minutes ago, with window light. Slightly cropped, resized and sharpened only the in-focus areas and printed it with my Canon i860 printer on Red River Ultra Pro Satin paper. No fancy settings or profiles, just let the printer have control of the color. Shooting with digicams and cheap idiot-proof printers can be so satisfying. (Fuzzy area at lower left is light reflecting off the print.)

This is a scan of a portrait of Pablo Picasso which was published in Henry Cartier-Bresson's "Tête à Tête". You will please note that the composition does not follow the "Rule of Thirds". The glints in the eyes are blurred, indicating camera shake. Were it not a photo of a famous person, would it be a "great" photo?

Why do we obsess about technical perfection?

The more I look through Cartier-Bresson's work, the more I appreciate MY OWN images. I have been underappreciating them...and I'll bet you have underappreciated yours too!

Rather than concentrating on pixel peeping, burnt out highlights, and visual noise, shouldn't we try to be a little more concerned about our content and whether we get that "Ahah" feeling when we click on an image and it impacts us to the point of taking an extra breath?

When I prepare images for uploading to my galleries I put them in a folder and run a slideshow. If an image says "Blah" to me it goes into the recycle bin. If it sparks that extra breath feeling, it gets uploaded.

No doubt I have too many images in my galleries, but I hope that through them people will be educated (or at least amused) and encouraged to think differently about the way they shoot.

If you haven't visited the myriad galleries on pBase with great creative works by non-famous-photographers, mostly non-professionals, you are missing many great experiences.

After my second Sony H camera return (the H9) I have become convinced that until camera manufacturers get over this megapixel megazoom race without improving the sensors, there simply aren't going to be any cameras out there with the same beautiful detail that my older cameras produce(d).

Fancy features like huge zoom, super high ISOs, image stabilization, and large lcds do not make up for sensor deficiencies covered up by intolerable detail bashing noise reduction.

This morning as I watched my two cats chowing down I thought about capturing their sizes, since Beegie is packing on the weight again. My Canon A610 was in grabbing distance, so I changed the ISO to 400 (its highest) and got this shot in my dimly lit laundry room. I so very much cherish its wonderful auto white balance - the BEST of any digicam I've owned - even better than that from my dslrs. (This isn't a particularly spectacular image, but it did inspire me to pontificate here.)

I treasure my A610 and the hundreds of beautiful images it has produced, as I cherished the A80 which came before it.

For extreme low light photography I chose to get a Fuji F30, which has not disappointed me in low light, but I think the A610 has the edge on bright light dynamic range.

For "serious" work at high ISOs I still use my dslrs, but they're not nearly as much fun as my little digicams. Carrying several pounds around can get mighty tiring.

The point of this post? Appreciate what you have while you're waiting for the announcement that the megapixel, megazoom, high ISO race is over and they've come out with a super sensor that has increased dynamic range a hundredfold, along with solving the high ISO quality issue.

It seems that rather than getting better, the newer crop of digicams is more disappointing than anything else. I think I'm on "hold" now in the camera acquisition department - but I never can tell when I'm going to get caught up again in the race for the latest and greatest.

As you can see, the fur is growing back nicely on Beegie's recovering leg. She has been deeply into eating and lounging, two of her favorite activities, and I have delighted in watching her enjoy her life once more.

Doesn't her expression say, "Please don't move me?" It warms my heart to see her free again to enjoy what she enjoys ALMOST more than eating!

Her foot was soaked from all her biting at the bandage. I called the vet and asked if it could be removed sooner than Friday. Took her in this morning and it was removed. "Hallelujah", I thought. "Freedom at last". I was wrong. She still has to be crated for two more weeks and then gradually introduced to her freedom. Well...at least she won't have a constantly wet foot. Update: Messy bandage removed...I couldn't stand it any more. Found a safe place with nothing to jump on, where she could stretch her legs: http://isabelcutler.com/BeegiesFirstSteps.wmv I am happy that she immediately put weight on the repaired leg. Very good sign.

Now this is one sad cat...but she certainly is "enjoying" Pogo and Kit Kat's pillow. It's stuffed with buckwheat hulls and I can heat it in the microwave for 30 seconds. This is the way I found her when I went to switch her from this smaller crate to the larger one she stays in most of the time, the one that can accommodate a litter pan.

Beegie went back today to have the padding under her cast changed (for the first time). The vet said The cast had dropped about a half inch and that under no circumstances should I let her walk even a little on the leg because the cast can slip off! She's being a good girl about taking her Clavamox (antibiotic) which I hide in a "Pill Pocket". Sure beats trying to get her to take her pills crushed and mixed with her food. I think having the tv on for her has helped with the boredom. I wanted to watch the padding change procedure but there was another cat in the room that would have been disturbed by my presence (or so they told me). Perhaps next week I'll be able to take some pictures. Update 1/15/07: She's rejecting the Pill Pockets, even dipped in tuna juice!...so I'm holding back on the food to make sure she's really hungry when pill time comes and mixing the crushed pill in with her food. That's working.

One late Sunday afternoon a little over ten days ago, Beegie was wandering amongst the computer wires beneath my desk and cried out in pain. She emerged limping with a very sore rear right leg. The vet took an x-ray the next day and pronounced soft tissue damage, no break(s). Beegie's been on painkiller ever since and a couple of days ago starting putting just the barest amount of pressure on that leg. She's jumped up on the bed a couple of times, but won't uncurl her toes. Tomorrow she goes back to the vet. She's been kept company by public tv. Here, she's listening to Leif Ove Andsnes, a brilliant pianist. I really do feel the tv helps. I also put Louie in the room periodically and he sleeps in there. Update 1/02/07: A return visit to the vet and further x-rays still show no bone damage, but the vet feels a visit to a veterinary orthopedist is in order since she thinks there may be achilles tendon damage. We have an appointment in two days. Update 1/04/07: Beegie will have a metal plate and screws inserted in the ankle tomorrow. She will come home with her leg in a cast the day after and will have to have the packing in the cast changed weekly. She will have to be confined for about 8 weeks. This is the THIRD time I have gone through leg surgery on a cat. It's the second for Beegie on the same leg. Last time it was a luxated patella. Please send good thoughts our way.

When we left Long Island's hurricanes to happily retire to Western North Carolina, little did we know about routine hail along with daily afternoon thunderstorms in hot weather. Today's was a doozy! Scared the heck out of Louie, Beegie and Ricky. Sent this to our local ABC TV affiliate and it was shown on the 11pm news. (Might have made it for the 5pm news had we not had a power failure just as I was about to hit "send".) Note: This is quite oversharpened, but that was necessary in order to make the size of the hail visible.

I couldn't believe my luck...went out on the deck in the rain with just the very dimmest of lights and managed to get the Tamron 90 macro to focus - and with the internal flash in the 20D got this shot. These little guys let you get close! I even spoke to it! (The feeder is supposed to be squirrel proof - the weight of the squirrel closes the opening to the seed...but they weren't talking about FLYING squirrel weight!) Here's some information: http://www.fws.gov/endangered/i/a/saa8g.html and a close encounter report: http://www.sitnews.us/PhotoGallery/KathyStack/092003_flying_squirrel.html

I got the idea for this from a similar shelf sold by Pottery Barn. If you go to this link and look at the first and next two pictures you will see how the shelf was constructed by my husband. More descriptive material in the captions and comments. http://www.pbase.com/digipets/image/59001883

It's been literally years that I have tried to learn the pen tool and I just can't "get it".

Put a question on the Retouching Forum at dpreview.com and got this reply yesterday. After viewing the first tut I think I finally "get it". I must thank Sam for posting this info! http://www.wz2k.co.uk/pages/downloads/download-search.php?tutorialName=pen+tool

Is it possible to take too many cat pictures? Not if you are the lover of the cats...but sometimes they need a vacation from the camera, so I take out my stuffed helpers and try to invent creative situations for them.

Ping Pong is a distant cousin to Frimpong, the famed "World Travelling Bear". I had the good fortune to convince him to visit me in North Carolina, and his stay is documented here: http://www.pbase.com/frimpong/north_carolina

So what is the purpose of this blog? To test this new feature of pBase!

Well...I don't see the nice page layouts I've seen in the few pBlogs that are beginning to appear. Guess I have to learn more about setting page options...Ahah! I see I have to go to the "template" option up above the Style Sheet on the Edit this Gallery Page, and choose PBlog.