Tag: post a week 2013

Two Cents Tuesday Challenge: Curious – Week 2

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the view

imagine making the crossing on horseback

✈

Many would argue that air travel has become more complicated, less glamorous and infinitely more tiresome than in the past. The glory days of getting dressed up in Sunday best to take a plane trip are gone let alone full service, real cutlery with a decent in-flight meal and unlimited baggage allowances. Now we have to weigh our luggage even before we leave home, check ourselves in electronically and bring our own provisions. Nevertheless, there is something magical in being able to wake up in one time zone and go to sleep in another.

This fortnight’s Two Cents Tuesday Challenge has literally flown across the continent today and in doing so have simultaneously gained and lost three hours. No matter how many times we do it, the transition from one state of being to another, no matter how familiar, is always  – Curious.

Last week we asked “How does curious look to you?” –  A silly hat or wiffle bat, Granny on her roller skates, things in bottles, painted plates, one weird shoe without a mate, urchins in the ocean deep, twisted kitties fast asleep…

We would love to see your vision.

For all those who are new readers to Across the Bored, some great entries and the guidelines for this fortnight’s challenge can be found here. Need more info – Have a look at HOW DOES THIS WORK.

Two Cents Tuesday Challenge: Curious

19 Comments

curious

out of the primordial soup

♆

Across the Bored has decided at the last minute to shirk off those domestic obligations which can certainly wait until the weather is inclement and head west.  Vacation is too large and loaded a word to use in this case, but we have certainly made the arrangements to return to our summer spot of the last few decades with the aim of recharging our psychic batteries for the upcoming long and dreaded winter.

It seems that no matter where we go, whether around the corner or across the oceans, to places unknown or familiar, we always are struck by those things that are different, out of context, those bits of life that excite our imaginations and make us want to just show them to someone else. The Two Cents Tuesday Challenge would venture that the found object pictured above is like much of what we see  – Curious.

“How does curious look to you?” –  A silly hat or wiffle bat, Granny on her roller skates, things in bottles, painted plates, one weird shoe without a mate, urchins in the ocean deep, twisted kitties fast asleep…

We would love to see your vision.

For all those who are new readers to Across the Bored, here are some guidelines for the challenge: HOW DOES THIS WORK?

  1.  I will post some commentary on a random topic that pops into my head (such as the above) and then ask you to respond on the same.
  2. Your point of view on the current week’s challenge can take any form: a quote, a motto or saying, an essay, poem or opinion of yours or attributed to someone else, a piece of music, a song, a video, a work of art, photograph, graffiti, drawing or scribble – but it has to be about the topic!
  3. Please, don’t just link to an old post… challenge yourself.
  4. The Challenge will be open for 14 days (there will be a reminder post at the 7 day mark) after which I will post another.
  5. ENJOY, have FUN and TELL your friends and fellow bloggers.

 SO – Create your Two Cents Tuesday Challenge post

  1. Then add a link to your blog in my comment box.
  2. To make it easy for others to check out your post, title your blog post “Two Cents Tuesday Challenge” and add the same as a tag.
  3. If you would like your reader to see what others are presenting for the same challenge, add a link to the “Two Cents Tuesday” challenge on your own blog.
  4. Feel free to pick up your badge on the Two Cents Tuesday Challenge page
  5. Remember to Follow My Blog to get your weekly (hopefully) reminders.

Two Cents Tuesday Challenge: It’s up to you… Week 2

6 Comments

strawberries

straight from the garden, dirt and all

☺

The unbearable heat of the last few days means that there are few hours during the day when one can really appreciate the greener pleasures of the back yard.  Out early to check whether the birds have beaten us to the strawberry patch, the tomatoes and squash look limp, the zucchini flowers have been snapped off and carted away by furry urban poachers for a 4 am snack and the weeds….. well, the weeds do very well no matter what. With temperatures soaring to the low 40s by mid afternoon, we have spent a good part of the day inside in constructive pursuits with a glance out the front window every once in a while to check for Mad dogs and Englishmen.

On one of these breaks we were awestruck by an unusual scene unfolding on the front lawn. The squirrels had come down out of the trees and were stretched out full-length cooling their bellies in the shaded grass. The utilities companies have been hacking off large parts of the local trees lately, supposedly in an effort to clear the power lines from possible breakage – in doing so they have not only mangled the greenery but removed much of what was keeping the little rodents’ homes at a bearable temperature. I am not an overly huge fan of what most cityfolk refer to as “rats with good PR” but they were very cute and seemed in need of a good cool-off.

Across the Bored’s nurturing instincts kicked in and when the little blighters had moved on we put out a bowl of water. A squirrel rest-stop as it were, if the neighborhood dogs don’t get to it first…  Like this fortnight’s Two Cents Tuesday Challenge, it is all about doing something to effect positive change in our small corner of the universe – It’s up to You.

Have a look at the previous topics covered in the challenge – “Is there a theme that appeals to you?”

It’s up to you     Toys    Clean    Bold     Random    Heritage    Special    Happy     Gifts    Graffiti     Brilliant     Funny     Habit     Resolution     Relax     Sweet    Illumination   Decoration   Morning   Style    Home   Pressure   Temptation    Manipulation    Compromise    Procrastination

We would love to see your vision.

For all those who are new readers to Across the Bored, some great entries and the guidelines for this fortnight’s challenge can be found here. Need more info – Have a look at HOW DOES THIS WORK.

Becoming a Painter again

6 Comments

NEM Painterly

Across the Bored has written previously of the inspiration to be found on EyeEm, the global photosharing community where one can find a wide range of styles and genres by artists and photographers of all levels. It gives people a chance to get more exposure for their work and also gets one interested in playing around with some of the nifty apps that are available for smartphones. Many offer filters and effects that, if executed by traditional means on canvas with paint and brush, would take considerably longer. Applied to photography, their application is relatively fast, the possibilities for correction forgiving and the creative permutations endless.

That said, we uploaded the photo below.

tomatoe series IIPhoto notes: iPhone 5 native camera, snapseed, camera awesome, glazed, and distressed fx

It was selected to appear in NEM Painterly – Featured Art 4 curated by MaryJane Sarvis – NEM, the New ERA Museum, “takes shape mainly to spread the concept of pristine Art, affordable and available to everyone by potentially forging new artists to new techniques of digital mobile processing.” We are truly honoured to be included amongst this group of talented and groundbreaking photographers.

If you would like to see more in our gallery, click on the EyEm icon in the sidebar. The fruit of summer is sweet indeed…

Two Cents Tuesday Challenge: It’s up to you…

15 Comments

Your choice

about 18 cents worth

✭

While most people see the winter solstice as the end of the year, with January ringing in a new and glorious reprieve from old bad habits, in our house it is June that is counted as year-end. The end of school, the end of those fall through spring routines, the time to wrap up business before the hazy days of summer cast their spell and make even the simplest tasks an Atlantean chore. July means the days are in flux and we try for a time where there are no set plans to see what comes to us instead. A whole chunk of life now recedes like flotsam carried by waves at the shore – recent events have inspired change, necessitating some adjustment in the way we all think and react. They have instigated various bouts of reflection, some poignant, some maudlin, some downright silly.

With that in mind, and as Across the Bored is easing its way slowly back into the blogosphere with a rather annoying case of monitor neck (related only in degree of pain to tennis elbow and carpal tunnel), something fast and easy (for us) was decidedly in order for this week’s offering. The Two Cents Tuesday Challenge feels it is time for a retrospective, scroll through the archives by clicking on this link, the image widget in the sidebar or on one of the topics below and pick something, anything  – It’s up to You.

“Which theme appeals to you?”

Toys    Clean    Bold     Random    Heritage    Special    Happy     Gifts    Graffiti    Brilliant    Funny    Habit    Resolution    Relax    Sweet    Illumination   Decoration   Morning   Style    Home   Pressure   Temptation    Manipulation    Compromise    Procrastination

We would love to see your vision.

For all those who are new readers to Across the Bored, here are some guidelines for the challenge: HOW DOES THIS WORK?

  1.  I will post some commentary on a random topic that pops into my head (such as the above) and then ask you to respond on the same.
  2. Your point of view on the current week’s challenge can take any form: a quote, a motto or saying, an essay, poem or opinion of yours or attributed to someone else, a piece of music, a song, a video, a work of art, photograph, graffiti, drawing or scribble – but it has to be about the topic!
  3. Please, don’t just link to an old post… challenge yourself.
  4. The Challenge will be open for 14 days (there will be a reminder post at the 7 day mark) after which I will post another.
  5. ENJOY, have FUN and TELL your friends and fellow bloggers.

 SO – Create your Two Cents Tuesday Challenge post

  1. Then add a link to your blog in my comment box.
  2. To make it easy for others to check out your post, title your blog post “Two Cents Tuesday Challenge” and add the same as a tag.
  3. If you would like your reader to see what others are presenting for the same challenge, add a link to the “Two Cents Tuesday” challenge on your own blog.
  4. Feel free to pick up your badge on the Two Cents Tuesday Challenge page
  5. Remember to Follow My Blog to get your weekly (hopefully) reminders.

AAA – Challenge

17 Comments

AAA medieval

As An Arrow through the heart
Angelic luminance Assaults
making us Abandon All
our preconceptions
Automatic Abbreviations
Avowed illusions
About Art
for the Averted gaze
Asks us to Abdicate
Awestruck and Astonished
the Awkward visions
and rise Above
this Anarchy of the soul

to Awaken

⧝

Amble through the entries of Frizztext’s AAA – Challenge.

Two Cents Tuesday Challenge: Toys – Week 2

10 Comments

toys 2still making us smile

We always swore to never repeat those awful catch-phrases our mothers (and fathers) would fling out at opportune parenting moments but every once in a while we catch ourselves with very similar words on the tips of our tongues.  The platitude that sprung to mind today was “things were simpler when I was a kid”. It doesn’t take a degree to deduce how this can’t, in fact, be anything other than historically accurate as we grew up pre-electronic diversions, pre-colour television, pre-headphones, pre-pretty much everything.

Entertainment was basic but there was no lack of it. Inside or out, alone or with friends, our choices were limited by the little available on the market or what we could scavenge and throw together in a pinch. We certainly didn’t have as much stuff as children today and some of it has survived the long haul of adolescence, leaving home and starting our own families to sit in their own place of honour amongst our prized possessions.  Our own bears have seen alot of action, now they watch us compose and create, revise and revisit, like talismans of permanence in a rapidly changing daily life.

This fortnight’s Two Cents Tuesday Challenge theme – Toys – suggests that everybody’s got their something… 

Last week, Across the Bored was curious –  “What form do toys take for you?” –  That fuzzy bear, a game of solitaire, pick-up sticks or camera clicks, beads and baubles, stereos sweet, nail polish for toes on pretty feet, shiny cars, long telescopes to see the stars or best of all – a cardboard box and simple ball… We would love to see your vision.

For all those who are new readers to Across the Bored, some great entries and the guidelines for this fortnight’s challenge can be found here. Need more info or want to browse past themes? Have a look at HOW DOES THIS WORK.