Thursday, May 3, 2007

The Meaning of a Name

Wow, it's been awhile (almost a whole month) that I haven't posted. Does knowing that I've been --
1. finishing up my spring term, with finals, grading (all-day portfolio exchange grading), paperwork, cleaning up my office;
2. then planning for my classes next term, "migrating" my online classes to a new software (WebCT has become Blackboard), planning for a new teacher class for the Fall;
3. then the usual house-cleaning that gets neglected close to the end of every term, plus springtime gardening (I'm digging/building a pond -- but then I've been doing that for seven years, now);
4. and getting started back on revising my first book and writing my second novel
-- excuse my neglect? I guess I'm lucky I got back here at all!

You may have noticed that while the title of my blog site is Tijeras Snow, my address is tijeras-snowcuts. I'd like to explain that. I might have gotten away with tijeras-snow and it would have been easier to remember, but here's the deal. I really wanted "snowcuts." That's because I cut snowflakes that have silhouettes in them. While "Tijeras" is where my post office abides (I actually live many miles south of Tijeras, in a subdivision called Tranquilo Pines, near a village named Yrisarri) the word "tijeras" also means "scissors" in Spanish. Pretty handy, huh?

Since people have discovered my snowflakes, I've been asked to make snowflakes of Jazzercise, buffalo, field hockey (for a lady whose daughter played field hockey), flowers, and swans. I take a request as a challenge.

Anyway, I'm posting a couple of my snowflakes, so you know what I mean. The blue-backed snowflake was one I did of "ratites," which are flightless birds, for a woman who writes for a ratite magazine. This flake, containing ostriches (the largest figure), emus, and kiwis, was the most difficult I've done.


This is one of my favorites, birds decorating a Christmas tree.


And finally, here's a spider on a web that I did for Halloween.

2 comments:

Carol Anne said...

That snowflake of ratites is just totally awesome. I'm speechless.

It occurs to me that a snowflake of sailboats would be nifty, but I wouldn't want to ask you to do one right now -- most of the pictures I have are of Black Magic in gentle conditions, and I think pictures of the boat heeled into the waves in stiffer winds would make for a more exciting snowflake.

Meanwhile, like you, I have a book to finish up writing. Murder at the Community College went very well, but I still need to do a lot of work on Murder at the Yacht Club.

Connie said...

Maybe I can "combine" two pictures -- the boat and the seas.

We need to get together, Carol Anne. I, too, have a murder mystery in the works. A culinary mystery that takes place at the community college. And I don't know boats, but I could be a reader for your first novel.