Monday, November 23, 2009

The Creek


This is a little creek close to my house. I don't know why it caught my eye this morning but it did. I just had to pull over and take a few shots. I think it's the autumn leaves. I love all that color. On one side of the road, the water was running (as in this photo) and on the other side of the road, it was still. This is my favorite season. It's a shame it doesn't last longer.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Tweaking


After church today, I spent the afternoon tweaking photographs. I love to do it but you can sink a LOT of time into this activity by playing around! I get lost in it.

The above is just an amazing look at nature. I was up early one morning photographing spider webs and came up with so many different designs. Some of them look like jewelry to me!

I love to stop and take a close look at the little things.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Busy, busy, busy!


I have been pretty busy lately and not had too much time the last couple of days to post here. I don't want that habit to continue and want to post every day until the end of the year. So I thought I'd post another photo from the foggy morning I was out at 5:30 am snapping these pictures. I put this one on here straight out of the camera but I'd like to take time and work with this whole group. I just love the soft and peaceful look of this peaceful morning. The colors are fall-like, too.

I have been busy sewing, crocheting, babysitting, some cooking, organizing, reading, working with Photoshop to try to learn some more about it, went to a baby shower, just a lot of things like that. I am ready for some down time and plan to take some within the next few days.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Lazy Daze


My days have seemed lazy lately. I've been doing a lot of reading, working with photos and files on the computer, photographing things outside, a little bit of sewing, and organizing things. I've cooked with my husband (which we used to do a long time ago when we first were married).

I've been waking up very early lately, too. Day before yesterday, I woke up at 3 am and yesterday I woke at around 5:30 so I headed outside with my camera when I saw this fog (as in the photo above). It was beautiful and I got a lot of soft photos. The one above is one of my favorites. It has the warm, fall colors in it with the hay bale and the mist.

I've been feeling a little low lately, probably because the holidays are approaching and this will be the first Thanksgiving and Christmas without my mother here. I want to draw close to my family but they're all so busy. At least we can keep in touch through all this technology. I love them all.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Art


Art encompasses so much - painting, drawing, photography, writing, music, cooking, just creating in any way. All my life, these are the things I've been interested in and they all kind of mix and mingle together. But there's one aspect of all these things that I'm not doing and I want to do. I want to take a photo such as the one above and paint it or draw it or re-create it in some way or some medium. I'm enjoying photography and learning more and more but I still have this urge to paint, draw, etc.

I guess I really have no excuse not to do this but I make excuses and I procrastinate and I do all kinds of other things, tip toeing around this. So this is what I've decided to do. When this blog is done at the last day of this year, I'll will not post on this one anymore. It will be finished. I will go back to my art blog and start trying to concentrate on that and post there.

I read somewhere (in an art magazine, I think) about a woman who is an artist and she decided to take one photo and paint it or re-create it 100 times in different ways. She talked about how much she learned by doing this. I am CONSIDERING this with something simple like the photo above or a similar one. I know I would learn a lot and I have to challenge myself most of the time to make myself do things.

I know this is a weird post but I'm in a weird mood. ha! We'll see what happens but that's kind of a "half plan." Just an idea. I have lots of other ideas in the making. I'll see what materializes.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

The Golden Hour


Professional photographers are always talking about the Golden Hour. As I understand it there's one in the morning and one in the afternoon. I took this photo this afternoon and have titled it The Golden Cat in the Golden Hour!

This is Peekie (short for Peek-A-Boo), one of our three cats. He IS a beautiful cat and the sweetest cat in the world. He followed me around outside this afternoon as I was roaming around with my camera. I kept trying and trying to get a photo of him but he just wouldn't settle down. Finally, he did and was sitting out close to the pond in the front yard cleaning himself and I got one. I love our Peekie and he does look beautiful in the Golden Hour, doesn't he?

Friday, November 13, 2009

A Haunting Question


This is the toughest post I've made this year and it is a haunting question. I've thought about it all day.

Above is a photo from yesterday when we took Paige to the zoo. They have a nice playground there which she enjoys so much. It is one of the first places we took her to enjoy. When we got home, I loaded the pictures on the computer and she was sitting in my lap looking at them. When we came to this picture, she got really excited because this was one in which she was trying to help a little boy come up the slide. He was younger and she just loves to be a helper when she has an opportunity.

She asked me why I didn't take a picture of the little boy :( That question really made me stop and think. I remember the moment. I considered taking his picture with her but decided not to do it and just have a picture of her. She wanted him in the picture because she was helping him.

I'm not proud of the fact that I left the little boy out of the picture and I won't do it again. This has really bothered me all day today. I'm glad she pointed out this character flaw of mine by asking this question. We can learn so much from little children if we'll only listen with our hearts.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Zoo Trip Again


We took Paige to the zoo again today. The weather was perfect and there were only three families at the zoo, including us. It was great. The above photo is my favorite from the whole group. I didn't tweak it at all because I'm too tired but I just like the expressions I caught. They were both saying, "cheese."

I did play around with my camera a little today and I used the bracketing feature. It just shoots three exposures in a row and I can choose which one I like the best and delete the others if I like. And I found that at this same spot where I adjust this, I can also set up continuous shooting, self-timing and remote control shooting. So I'm having fun and learning at the same time.

I also played around with Photoshop tonight a little while and learned a few things. But I'm just so tired that I'm going to call it a night.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Cinderella's Grandmother


You can barely see her but this is Cinderella's grandmother in the mirror on the merry-go-round. I didn't tweak this photo at all.

Cinderella's grandmother had a lousy day today even though she was productive - cleaning house, doing laundry, went to choir practice and even cooked a very good meal for tonight. She has just been in a lousy mood. Guess even members of Cinderella's family have those kinds of days.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Front Yard Wildlife - Five Views


Yesterday I saw this turtle in our front yard. Even at a distance, he looked huge! So I stepped into the front yard a little closer to him and decided to go in and get my camera. I decided to put on the long lens because I was a little apprehensive about getting too close to him. I was scared he might be a snapping turtle and I didn't want to get "snapped!"

Hello!

A close-up of his tail. This looks very prehistoric!

And here's a side view of his head.

Goodbye!

I looked him (or her) up on wikipedia. It IS a snapping turtle. They can weigh from 10 to 35 lbs. and even up to 75 lbs, the shell on an adult can grow up to 20 inches (he was pretty close to that in length, I believe), they have very strong jaws and can also injure by their claws (especially the back claws), can defecate, urinate and/or musk on you and should be avoided. The females lay 25 to 80 eggs a year.

He was headed for our little pond in the front yard probably to eat well. They will eat other reptiles, small mammals, and even snakes which I like!

So I kept my distance and photographed him and let him go!

Monday, November 9, 2009

Dolly Park


I'm back from Tennessee. The four of us had a wonderful time although I hated my oldest daughter did not get to be with us at "Dolly Park", as Paige called it. The above photo shows how beautiful the lights were there.

Paige was CRAZY about Dolly Parton. We went into her museum on the park and we could NOT get her out of there! She loved looking at her clothes, shoes, photographs, musical instruments, listening to her music, etc. She wanted to go to Dolly's house!

It was a good visit with Erin, too. We spent the night with her the first night and had a great time. Then we rode from Nashville to the Sevierville/Pigeon Forge area. Erin had a gift show to attend while we went to Dolly Park. Then we were able to shop some, eat out and enjoy some more time with all of us together. I love my girls. :)

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

A Mini Vacation Coming Up!


Here are my three favorite girls! Tomorrow I'm leaving with the two on the left and going to visit the one on the right! ha!

We're headed for Nashville and then to Gatlinburg for a mini vacation. I'm very much looking forward to just being with my girls. :) May not post again here until I get back but hope to have a lot of good photos to post.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

An Aha Moment!


This is the back of our house. This was Halloween night and I know it's dark and difficult to tell anything about it but it's a pretty big house to clean - two story. (*As a side note, one of our neighbors that lives across from the back of our house came over the day after Halloween and told Johnny that it looked like our house was on fire! ha!*) Anyway, most of the time I don't like to clean house but somebody's got to do it and we really can't afford to pay anyone so that leaves me. Sometimes I AM in the mood and actually enjoy it. But I ALWAYS enjoy having and being in a clean house.

Last night, I decided that today I would take Paige to her Mothers' Day Out school and then just come straight back home and use that four hours to clean house. I didn't finish but I did get a lot done. Being surprised about how much I did accomplish, I had an AHA moment! I thought, you know, I could do this every Tuesday (or Thursday) if Emily's working on Thursday and I'm taking her to school. I could come home and clean house and get some things done around here instead of wasting time just looking around, etc. in the area where her school is. Then having that done, I could run any errands or do any shopping with her after I pick her up! What a grand idea!

I still have some cleaning to do but I got most of it done today. I will definitely do this again!

Monday, November 2, 2009

A Sewing Day!


Today was a sewing day for me and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Above is one of the things I worked on. It was very tedious with little bitty pieces of fabric to cut and applique but turned out cute, I thought.

For more, go to my other blog, bearbear to see. I think this is the first time I've posted one photo the same on both blogs.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Decorations Came Down Today


I have never in my life put up decorations for any holiday one day and take them down the next! But that's what I did for Halloween this year. It all went up amazingly fast and taking it down was fast, too. I think my husband and I enjoyed it more than anyone! Had a great Halloween with only one trick or treater but she was a special one. :)