My Kind of Evening

I had such a lovely evening.
At one point in recent history, I promised my friend Kate that I'd enter the next Pioneer Woman photography contest with her. And then it was a macro assignment and I don't have a macro lens.
So I told Kate I'd enter the next one. The next one was landscapes. Sadly, I have no landscapes photos in my collection and I was deeply entangled in my photography class final. So I didn't do that one either.
I started to feel like a pretty bad friend.
However, I told Kate that as soon as my class was done, I'd take a landscape photo. Just for her. Just in an attempt to prove that I'm sort of a thoughtful person. Sometimes.

My class was finished yesterday.

So today, I packed up the fam and made them accompany me to a local nature preserve, hoping to hunt down a nice landscape shot.
The humidity of the last couple of days has dissipated somewhat, a soft breeze was blowing and the sun was going down. Birds everywhere were calling and yes, even alligators were grunting at each other from both sides of the path we were treading.
Chris decided that maybe he would look into a concealed weapons permit for next time. He didn't say, but I'm pretty sure he implied that I seem to be bent on dragging my family into dangerous situations to take pictures. I can't be sure, but I'm suspicious.
My family waited patiently as I set up my tripod.

I framed and re-framed and snapped my shutter and some wonderful gentleman, carrying a tripod and a camera bag himself, smiled at my husband and said, "Artist at work, huh?" I smiled and let him pass in front of my lens, my dress swirling around my ankles in the breeze, hair gone all wild and a ridiculously happy grin spreading across my face.

I'm not going to say that I took brilliant pictures. I need to edit them and try some fun stuff and I'll show them to you, I'm sure. Here's one little shot, just to prove I was there:


We left, the deafening shrill of thousands of cicadas following us to the car. Evening flowers were opening and their sweetness seemed to be drifting our way from deep in the woods.
And I was happy.

The end.

So..

Um, hey. Turns out that I'm the kind of girl that eats leftover chocolate sauce out of the pan while she's in the bathtub.

Daily Bliss: catching up
Wakeup Playlist: Midlake, Bandits

The End

No, no - don't worry. I don't mean the end of this blog or anything. It's just the end of my photography classes.
But I do feel sort of...bereft. I walked out of class and felt a little bit empty. I've had so much fun and I've learned so much in these classes, and I don't just mean about aperture and shutter speed and stuff like that. I mean that I've learned a lot about myself. I've learned that I can make stuff with a camera in my hand.
See, most of the stuff I make comes with instructions. When I make - sew, knit, crochet, cook, play the piano or whatever - I always follow somebody else's ideas (well, if I'm being completely honest, I usually start with somebody else's idea and alter it to suit my fancy). But when I use a camera, I'm making something that's mine. Even when I have an assignment from a professor, ultimately, the images I take are mine. For the first time in my life, I've had to be brave and present something to a group of people that I made - from start to finish. So, it was a stretch for me, but I did it.
And I feel really good about it.
And you know what else? My final project got a round of applause from the class.
So, for those of you who have endured my endless indecisiveness and looked at version after version of images and helped me with the actual shutter when I couldn't get the job done myself (that's you, Mindy) - thanks. Thanks so much. You guys - my friends - you're just the best.

"What's next?" I asked myself as I walked to my car.
I have a few ideas, but only time will tell which ones will tug hard enough at my heart to pull me along into a new adventure.

A Start

I am going to try and get caught up with picture posting here in the next couple of days. Here are all the sand pictures from that poster I made in class.
Every year, Chris & I take the kids to the beach to celebrate the Summer Solstice. That is the only beach trip of the year that we allow them to collect shells. I also grab a little sand and we keep that year's treasures in a glass milk jar. This year, we will fill our tenth jar! On the back of the tags pictured here, I also have written the year we visited that beach.

How Are Ya?

So, hi. It's been a while, huh?
I mean, it's been a while since I actually put words here.

Rather than trying to re-tell the stories of the last several weeks, how about I just start with yesterday and we move forward from there?
It was hot. I mean, swelteringly hot here. We didn't get much of our beautiful spring weather here before summer arrived and my tomatoes are definitely suffering.

I mean, there are yellowing leaves and it looks like early blight or maybe powdery mildew are going to get them before I get many tomatoes. If not that, then the fruitworms that have been eating at my plants will probably get them before I get many tomatoes. However, they are very tall and have stayed green and thriving for my longer than my tomatoes last year.
I am improving.
I'm not saying it would take much to improve on my gardening skills from last year, but I am improving nonetheless.
Our snow peas are just about done - the heat is just killing them - but the cucumbers are doing well and the squash are blooming. Hopefully, I got those out early enough to avoid the squash bugs that ate all my plants last year, but with the hot weather setting in early, I'm not sure. I may have to resort to pesticides if I want any food at all, but I don't want to do that. I might try neem oil first. I've heard good things about it.

In the early heat of the day, though, Andrew's jazz band had a concert at one of the local lakes. The school district hosted a fine arts festival downtown and it was lots of sweaty fun. We enjoyed seeing the work of local kids on display and hearing ensembles from various schools perform.
We also enjoyed this random dude.

He walked across the front of the stage while a local high school band played Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" - and he totally air-guitared it.

It was awesome.

And a little bit gross.

As for the rest of our Saturday, errands were run, yard work was done, and we built a fire in our back yard.




As the sun went down, the heat did too and a nice breeze set in.
A stiff enough breeze to blow smoke into little girls' eyes.

So yeah. We are the kind of family that has safety goggles laying around the house.
Emma ducked inside and came back to the fire, prepared and protected.

As for me, I am doing well. I still have to write my bit about that photography final, but other than that, I am done with that class. It's been so much fun, but so much work too and I'm looking forward to taking pictures just for me - and not because somebody told me to.
I don't like being told to do things.
Speaking of which, I have been told by a doctor to take a bunch of allergy medicine. That should help me get my voice back - apparently the problem is the heavy pollen season. But I tell you what - that stuff makes me sleepy! I don't take medicine, as a general rule, so when I do, it's super-effective. I am not a good sleeper - I'm prone to insomnia and love staying up late. But.
Once I take that allergy medicine at night, it seems I am a goner. I am sleeping so hard for so long and have such a hard time waking up. It's weird.
Due to all of that heavy sleep, I have no idea what my wake-up playlist is. That feature will return when the songs do. Or the memory of the songs. Whatever.

But...

Daily Bliss: coffee, coffee, coffee

Final

I am almost unsure of showing this to you guys, but you're my friends. I trust you.
My photography final was a pretty deep one. I still have to write my "artist's statement," and it remains to be seen if I will fully explain myself in public.
Suffice it to say that we were supposed to illustrate our deepest fear.
I worked really hard on this. I mean, there were days of shooting and blending and editing and in the end, after four whole days of work, I scrapped it and went this direction instead.

In the meantime...

Here's something pretty to look at.