Life at a "Swell's" pace

Skylar's movie role as a Zombie! (Makeup; Prescreening)

My son landed a movie role in the movie 'Sick-n-Contagious' that was shot here in Brownsville, Oregon by LB Productions. From makeup to camera scenes the entire movie was shot in a day and went from 9:00AM curtain call till 12:45AM the following morning. We were beyond tired the following day, but it was an encridible experience. These posts will come back to back starting with the makeup and character set and end with the wrap-up with the movie in it's own post.

Skylar's role as a zombie in the movie 'Sick-n-Contagious'....

"Sick-n-Contagious"

The movie is based on a terrorist that contaminate with a poisonous virus

that spreads through several small towns into the public water supply systems.

The sick-n-contagious virus turns all people young and old into flesh eating zombies.

A team of seven join together to find the Vaccination Center

as all hell breaks out through each town they enter. -Source: LB Productions Casting Page.

From normal-looking little boy.......to zombie in 30 minutes.

Agreement signed and makeup underway.

Applying the "green-ish" face paint to make him look dead.

Dark eyes.

While the makeup was being applied, a Eugene news station was there filming the action.

Getting close to a zombie-like appearance.

What's a zombie without a couple of flesh wounds, right?

Applying extra blood "splatters" in various places. The blood "splatters" were made up of BBQ sauce, ketchup and cocktail sauce.

Scary looking already!

Apparently zombies still get boogers.

When I saw this picture of me holding Skylar's hand, I thought of a great book to write, "My zombie child." Ha!

More photos HERE and MORE to follow soon!

Learn more about the movie here!

"Sick-n-Contagious"

Happy Independence Day!

Wishing you all happy and safe 4th!

Our Garden Currently: How to make simple raised beds

Jeff mowing the area for the beds. Look at all those dandelions!

We've decided this year would be the year to transition from in-the-ground gardening to raised beds. When we first moved into the "Spider Cottage" (as we like to refer to our humble abode because of all the spiders we tend to find lurking about inside) here in Oregon there was a burn pile that the previous tenant had used to apparently burn wire, cans and other various nonburnable items, so it took us a bit to clean up the debris so that we could have a garden. We tilled the ground and then finally, last year, said forget it! Every turn of the dirt revealed some new, ridiculous treasure.

Going with raised beds was quite fun though because we made them all by hand and that alone was extremely fun. And once they were finished it was a sense of accomplishment and we stood and marveled over our creations. :-)

We built our raised beds with the board deminsions of 8 feet by 4 feet. These just worked best for what we were needing and also because of space.

We bought 3-8 feet long boards of pine and cut one in half for the sides and then brought them all together with all-weather large nails.

It took all of 3 hours to pull them all together, from the sawing to the hammering. We built 4 raised beds and plan on building 2 more possibly later on in a different area of the yard.

PITA looking on making sure we are noticing him.

All done. We feel 2 more beds would fit perfectly along the side of the others once we get everything situated.

Gardening is a great reward and money saving. I hope these beds inspire you to take up this wonderful hobby.

Growing Cat Grass for your Kitty

My kitty, Meia, loves cat grass (Avena sativa, or the common oat) and it's so simple to grow in just a small pot in your window or in a large planter on your deck. There are no real answers, even by vets, as to why cats eat cat grass, but either way your kitty will go nuts over the lush grass that comes from it and it's also a great way to get them to add more fiber into their diets.

This is one of my favorites to use. It's from a company called, Botanical Interests and they have some of the best seed selections I've seen online. You can purchase your seeds from BI, here.