Wha-huh???

I was thinking about it.... 

(and all that thinking was rather taxing, I tell ya)

and it took me many long moments to remember when I last took a picture.

I thought and I thought and I thunk and I thunk,

then the rational side kicked in and said,

"Duh... it was probably Christmas."

Oh, right... that makes sense.

I'm not entirely sure, but it may be possible that the auto focus on my camera is off a bit.

For a while, I thought it was me.

I thought I suddenly couldn't take a picture.

(That may be true too... the jury is still out.)

But this lack of picture taking is one of the many reasons that I haven't been blogging.

I like pictures and I like to be current.  

It's very hard for me to post something that happened more than a week ago,

much less last summer (which was awesome.)

And... ugh... I hate philosophizing about blogging on my blog too, 

but here I am doing it!!!

Darn it.

But I miss my blogging self, and I miss being here, 

and I'm finally finding more time to sit in front of the computer, so here I am.

And now that I've written a bunch of words that mean pretty much nothing,

I'm going to go dig through the archives and slap some random photos in between all those words.

Because I can.

And because I like pictures.

As it turns out... they're all Christmas pics.

(Which is not current... but whatever...)

And yes... my son did get a doorknob and my daughter did get bubble wrap.

That's just the way we roll.

Moving week...

It's late.  I'm tired.  And I'm sitting in a crowded hotel room with the kids. 

This past week was the pack up/ move out/ clean out week.

NOT so much fun.

But now, we are finally on the road.

It still doesn't feel real as we are currently headed to my in-law's house,

which doesn't feel like day one of a grand adventure, 

it just feels like a normal trip to Grandma's house.

We're thinking that once we're finally in unfamiliar territory,

it will feel more "real."

This week, photography has been pretty much the last thing on my mind.

Most of my pictures were very utilitarian in nature.

But I did find this sign on a cash register at a Chic-fil-a.

Hey, baby... want a breakfast burrito?

:D

And then there was this...

and this...

That, friends, is what happens when someone drops toilet bowl cleaner on your carpet.

SMH!!

That is some scary stuff!  

I almost never clean with chemicals.  I'm very much a vinegar and baking soda kind of girl.

It's better for you, it's better for the environment

and now we know...

it's better for your carpet.

Grant dropped the bottle and within seconds the carpet was GONE!

Scary, dissolved, gone!

Before I realized how bad this was, I gave him a dish towel to clean up his mess.

We do not know where the dish towel went.

We think maybe the toilet cleaner ATE it!!

Holy Cow!!  Never, ever, ever use that stuff! 

Now if you ask my kids what scares them most,

they'll tell you "toilet cleaner."

Gotta go get some sleep.

Hopefully, I'll have far prettier pictures to share soon!

Embracing imperfection

I brought my camera to the girls' riding lessons for the first time in months.

It has been soooo dark and sooooo cold 

that I generally spend my time huddled in the corner of the arena under the space heater

holding my hand warmers up to my nose.

It's been cold, people!

Just last week, I was sooo cold that I wimped out and sat in the car.

I never do that.

What if one of them fell off?

What if they did something amazingly good?

I usually want to be there for those moments.

But I was COLD!

But this week...

oh, it was wonderful!!!

It was 65 degrees out.

Warm enough to leave off the winter gloves and bring the camera out to play.

Even on a sunny, summer day

the arena is not the ideal place for taking pictures.

There are pockets of bright light and pockets of dark shadows.

At this time of the year, at 6:30pm,

there is nothing but darkness and the harsh artificial lights.

But I gave it a go anyway.

I placed the girls in the frame differently.

I turned the camera to the black and white setting.

I embraced the blurriness, 

the heads cut off, 

the bright lights 

and the dark shadows.

And I kind of love these pictures

with all of their "not-perfectness."

How many lumps will you take?

I woke up this morning thinking,

"Hey, I haven't had caffeine in two days and I've slept so well on those two days.

Maybe there's a connection, maybe I should work on eliminating caffeine."

It sounded like a good idea at 6:15 when I was supposedly well-rested,

but by 8am the sleepy feeling caught up with me and I quickly abandoned the "no caffeine" idea.

So I sit here with a cup of tea in hand, hoping to feel a little more awake soon.

Why don't you join me in a cup of tea and some..... grapes?

 If not grapes...

I might have a piece of candy or two leftover from yesterday that I'd be willing to share

I definitely have enough leftover chinese food to share with you!

When I order chinese food, I order enough to feed a small army,

but that way, I don't have to worry about what to feed everyone for lunch the next day. 

It works for me.

This was my "fortune" last night.

While it was undoubtedly true... the weather was wonderful, 

I don't really think that's a fortune.

And what if we were in the middle of a hurricane, or a blizzard, or it was 120 degrees out?

Then it certainly wouldn't be true.

But there wasn't a blizzard

and the temperature was an amazing 60-some degrees with beautiful blue skies,

but the wind... oh the wind it was a-howlin'.

(sorry... don't know where that weird phrase came from.)

(Very odd.)

Seriously, though...

the wind was making that kind of whooshing noise that you hear in the movies.

The down spout of our gutter was squeaking and scraping against the siding, 

making all kinds of spooky noises.

I had to run out just before bedtime to chase down the cereal boxes that had blown out of our recycling bin.

It was windy!

I thought I'd try to capture the wind by having Julia go outside and run around with this old curtain.

Ummm.... this didn't work out very well.

The curtain was too long and the ground was too muddy,

so what we ended up with is one really dirty piece of fabric that was getting tangled up around Julia's legs.

Maybe we'll revisit this another day.

I woke up this morning to find that the cherry blossom branches that I had put in a vase had bloomed!

Their counterparts outside won't bloom for another month or so, 

but it's nice to have a little Spring inside.

Speaking of spring... or spring in my step...

Noooooo.... I did not buy these shoes.

I just tried them on and enjoyed them for a moment or two.

Yes... I did say that I should get a pair of red shoes,

but I wasn't ready to pay over one hundred dollars for them

(marked down from $365!!!)

But they were fun to wear, even just for a moment.

(Besides... I needed that hundred to pay my "no turn on red" traffic ticket.)

Ouch!!

Well, now... how was your Valentine's day?

Did you get some warmer weather?

How many lumps will you take with that tea?

"There's nothing as sociable as a nice cup of tea."

-Bugs Bunny

:)

<

Today is Tuesday, you know what that means....

Want to come over and share a glass of wine with me today?  

Some people participate in virtual coffee or tea, but right now I'm drinking a glass of wine, 

so if you were here with me I'd be happy to share.  

There's plenty.  

I don't have a picture of the glass    

Strike that... yes I do.  Just took a picture.

 

You might think that I was being all artsy by taking the picture in black and white, but I wasn't.  

That's just the setting I left it in and I didn't see any reason to fix it. 

I guess I'm in a bit of a mood.

I don't know why... just am...

but I'm sure your company (comments) will help improve my mood.  

I do enjoy hearing from all of you very wonderful people.

And I try to respond to your comments, I truly do,

at least in one form or another.

Anyhow... I was thinking today how much I really love and appreciate your comments

and how they make blogging worth every moment.   

So... thank you.

 I might be a little sad because yesterday marked the end of a photo project that I had been working on, Picture Winter.  

I had such a great time with that one and will really miss the community that developed.

  When I checked out everyone's final pictures and commented, it kind of felt like the last day of school with everyone signing each other's yearbooks. 

If you ever get a chance to participate in one of Tracey Clark's classes, go for it!

(All of my picture winter shots)

However...

Today is the beginning of a new project called the Joy of Love.  

I'm looking forward to this one in particular because it's more focused on people

and sometimes I have a hard time taking portraits.  

I get a little self conscious about it and don't know how to direct my models. 

Or feel like I'm intruding on their space as I try to sneak a shot in,

so we'll see how this project works out for me.   

Here's my first picture for the project.

Today's prompt was "what they do."

Catch your loved one doing "something."

Quincy is always doodling or drawing or painting, etc...

Oh... and I wasn't really trying to be artsy here either.  

I was just attempting to hide the clutter behind her.   

;)

We spent the weekend in NY with my parents and sisters.

I got to hold my newest niece.

The kids got to spend their days sledding.

It was a good weekend.

I have 276 pictures of both the baby and the kids sledding that I need to go through.

I need to delete some and try to edit others.

 (I love this one even though, or maybe because the exposure is all wrong.

It was only a test shot, but I love the action and the random poses of the kids on the hill.)

I'm not very good at editing and generally try to get the best I can straight out of the camera, 

but I am learning to make the basic edits.

A crop here and there, some color and exposure adjustments.

Those little things make a world of difference. 

As I attempted to take pictures of this adorable baby, I realized that I had a LOT to learn.

One of my sisters so kindly reminded me that I should have some sort of concept before I started to take the pictures.

I must confess that I had no concept and basically no clue.

Fortunately, with a model as cute as that one it's hard to screw up too badly. 

:)

Now it's time for me to get dinner on the table. 

The chicken is starting to smell pretty good,

I have to check on the potatoes 

and there is broccoli to get started. 

Next month, I'm thinking of taking food pictures for my 365.

I am absolutely terrible at food photography, so I'm hoping I'll learn and improve.  

Fingers crossed!

Random thoughts while I avoid doing housework...

Today we woke up to a nice thick layer of ice on our driveways and roads and to the announcement that school was closed!  There's nothing like a totally unexpected four day weekend.  :)

I spent a very large portion of my day off yesterday on part one of my "fix the kid's bathroom" project.  Both the sink and the tub have been clogged so I played the part of the plumber and pulled apart the drain pipe under the sink and cleaned the grossness out. 

(Now, when the kids spit their toothpaste into the sink, it actually gets flushed away down the drain rather than sit there in the basin for hours.  Ewwww! )

See... all better.

I also poured copious amounts of draino down the bathtub drain and while it is running much better than before, it's still not perfect.
Today I will go at it with a plunger and if all else fails, I'm busting into the access panel and cleaning out those pipes.
  I may not LOVE doing this, but there is something empowering about it all and makes me feel like Wonder Woman.

(With a tool belt and hopefully not a plumbers crack!)

(No visual aid for this one... you can thank me later!)

While I was waiting for the draino to work it's magic, I had time to take a better look at the kid's bathroom.  I'll be honest, I generally try to avoid looking at this room, because it's generally gross.   I do send the kids up there to clean on a fairly regular basis, but teen-age clean and mom clean are two different things.

(Not to mention that neither of those compare to company clean, but I haven't had any visitors in a while.)

   Many surfaces that haven't seen a wet sponge in a while were scrubbed clean.  And while I was at it, I took down the old shower curtain and decided it needed to be replaced, so off to Target I went.
That brings me to "part two" in which I fix that bathtub drain once and for all and hang up the pretty new curtain. 
And I'm avoiding it...
by boring the crud out of you.  

So I move on....

Have you ever heard of Lee-Jackson day?  Yeah, I didn't think so.  Apparently it's a holiday only in the Commonwealth of Virginia.  (Seriously... can't they be a state just like everyone else?)  Lee Jackson is not one person, but the combination of Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson.  Now.... I am a New Yorker.  I tend not to get the fascination with the whole confederate army/ civil war thing, but around here... Lee and Jackson are everywhere! 

In fact it was on Lee-Jackson Memorial Hwy that I made a perfectly legal right turn on red only to be pulled over by a cop who then informed me that it was no longer legal.  They put up a brand new sign and then parked motorcycle cops at the corner to catch people like me who didn't bother to look at the new sign, because I've been turning right on red there for two years!
Ugh!

And speaking of Jacksons... my 10 year old recently discovered the Jackson 5.  :)
So we are now listening to I'll Be There, ABC, and Rockin' Robin.  I guess they were popular when I was just a baby, so while I certainly know their music, they were just background music for my childhood rather than a group that I was really into.  It's funny to see what kind of music your kids latch onto.
(I'd really rather not talk about the Tom Jones phase... What's new pussycat?")  :/

Guess I should go hitch my pants up and get some plumbing done.

Wonder Woman!

****Edit****

I got the bathtub totally fixed!!

No more standing water!

Our silly year

I came across a link up today that challenges you to remember the silly moments that you caught on camera this year.

I already have a "Looking back" post in the works,

but I took another stroll through the archives to find some of the sillier pics, 

the ones that may not have made the blog on the first go round.

Apparently, I live with a lot of silliness because there were SO MANY pictures to choose from

and I had to narrow it down to just a few.

Cousins and kindred spirits (at least where it comes to chocolate.)

The bug eyes!  I don't know how he did that!

Ooops!

My husband's going to kill me for this one.  

Yikes!

;)

I haven't a clue what this face was for. ????

Take a couple of girls out for a bit of a photo shoot and hilarity ensues. 

:)

A fourth of July water balloon fight brought out the silliness in all of them.

 

And summer silliness makes way for...

Winter ridiculousness!

What a fun way to remember the year.

Check out more silly pictures or join in on the fun here.