This was our car last week:

Please don’t gasp too loudly, I’m baring my soul here. It does make me sick though. There’s literally crap everywhere. There were runts in the seat belt wells. There’s even one right there on the seat waiting for a kid to sit on it. How old is that chocolate milk container? Naked Ken. No words. The four wheels of the car never left the ground. I promise.

Two points in my defense:

1. We were on a trip. We do not live this way. The front seats of the car look nothing like this. The amount of mess in the car is inversely proportional to one’s age.
2. There are school books in there! Bottom right corner! The girls actually did school each morning. I guess that was before they opened their candy and shook it at each other and then started throwing things.

Need another look? Overhead:

OMG.

At the end of the trip Du was having to lift Ashlyn out of her seat and put her back in when we made a stop. And it wasn’t like it took the whole trip for the girls to trash the back seat. This is after two days of travel. I’m so glad we didn’t get ants. Sometimes it’s better just to not look behind you.

Too bad we cleaned it out; we could have been reality tv stars.

I edited these to bring out the nuances in the clouds. They’re pretty grainy coming from my iPhone…that adds drama, no?

Ok, this I just darkened a little. To this Georgia girl that is downright scary! I don’t think I’ve ever seen clouds covering 100% of the sky like that where it looks like ocean waves, rolling along. . . and we were in the ocean. You can see the light almost breaking through the clouds and you want to reach up and spread them apart to let the light in and prove that there is peace just beyond the turbulent. What do Kansans see?

Does anyone else see that button-looking, outie part of the cloud in the center of the photo? It’s surrounded by a little halo of light. Crazy! (Click on the picture to see a full size.)

This is the same picture as above. I used the MLR Gritty & Grungy preset in LightRoom (where I do 99% of my editing). I love the look this preset gives. Not as ominous. Below is the original photo. Looks like the clouds are almost touching that barn.

For me, clouds are usually passive objects in the sky that float along lazily, and if you make the time you can determine shapes in them and make up stories. These clouds were active and alive and daring and already telling a story, demanding the same respect that ocean waves do – beautiful, but you know that they are more powerful than you.

N suggested a great BBQ place, Pappy’s, and we met for lunch on a beautiful, sunny day. It was gooooooood!

It was so fun to meet up in person! Thanks, N!

After lunch we headed over to the Arch. Talk about architecture! My photo prompt for the week was to include a paper airplane in a picture. This was the perfect place for that! Enjoy the pics (I’m also playing around with watermarking).

This last picture is so cool because my hubby and girls are the only people in the picture. I didn’t even have to photoshop anybody out!

The woodpecker has a long tongue. You can see that in his photo. I love how the brown…finch is giving me the look while her mate, the redder…finch? is busily eating away. You can see seed shells falling in the picture of the brown…finch? that is sitting straight towards the camera but has his head cocked to one side (and you can see his tongue). Not the best technically, by far, but enjoy!

Click to view slideshow.

The wall follows the flight path, which leads your gaze to the impact site. Each person’s name is engraved on a different wall panel. Only family members are allowed out to the impact site.

There are small grooves cut into the barrier every so often where people have laid mementos. You can see the impact site behind the barrier in one of the photos above.

In a small building there is a bulletin board where you can pin your thoughts.

I’m still saddened whenever I think about that day. It’s hard to believe over ten years have gone by.

So it’s the little things, like tulip magnolias in the Costco parking lot, that bring my girls and me the biggest joy when nature begins to wake up. In fact, these trees inspired a quick jaunt into DC to see if the other, more famous cherry blossom trees had begun to bloom. (They hadn’t).

I took this with my iPhone and then did some editing in LightRoom (some good, some questionable). I don’t think I took it over to Elements to edit there as well. I’m realizing I don’t really have an editing style yet–either a process that I consistently use OR a final look that tends to be me. I’m enjoying trying to figure that one out, though. I’m submitting this shot to Rock The Shot’s March photo challenge. If you’d like to play along head over to www.rocktheshotforum.com, specifically to this link here and add your pic.

I hope it’s spring where you are, no matter how mild your winter was! . . . Unless you’re in the southern hemisphere. Then you’re probably beginning to enjoy fall.

There are people who want to say that calling a woman a slut is war on women. Maybe they’re also talking about the idea that a PRIVATE institution wants to choose what it covers in its own health insurance. Really? Are those really what we want to call

WAR ON WOMEN?

Let’s sit back and take things in perspective. This is war on women:

• Sex-selective abortions and female infanticide. (Fortunately, female infanticide seems to be on the decline.) This is war on women.
• Genital mutilation such as circumcising females (nothing to do with hygiene) or sewing vaginas shut. This is war on women.
• Sex trafficking, which shockingly is alive and well IN AMERICA. This is war on women.
• Murdering, and publicly at that, women for having affairs. This is war on women.

Do we really want to say that an inappropriate comment and the desires of a private institution are wars on women? Cut the political bantering and forced American-feminist outrage. Put on your big-girl panties, forget about the old, white dude that called someone a slut, get righteously angry, and get the word out about the true war on women going on under the radar all over the globe.

My word of the year:

DEVELOP

Both as a person and a picture taker. Har har.

It is an absolutely stunning portrait of Michelle Obama. On the other hand, it is a high-fashion, posed image of the First Lady of the United States. Michelle has great style (most of the time). There is no precedence saying that America’s first ladies cannot express their personal styles and one or two have been trend setters. For some reason, though, I feel uneasy about the first lady posing for high fashion like this while in her public position and then releasing the photograph. It’s obvious the feelings that are purposely being portrayed: style, power, grace, sophistication. No one holds their hand on their thigh like that naturally, though. It’s provocative – where is she? (looks almost like a bathroom or a hallway) what is she getting ready to do? (hike up the dress to adjust her stockings? Very probable if she’s in a bathroom). Who stands like that in a gown?

Can anyone help me put my feelings into words? I don’t want to be stuck with tradition (thinking First Ladies don’t pose like this) if there’s no reason a First Lady shouldn’t pose like this (and release it to the public), but aren’t I right to feel a little uneasy looking at this?

*I found the picture of Facebook without any credit to its owner/the photographer.

I edited it in black and white as well, but I think I like the color better.

Either way, I have a really long shadow-head. Ha! Rock the Shot has challenged its readers to take an interesting self portrait and I think this fits the bill. If you want to play along head over to www.RockTheShotForum.com. February’s challenge should be posted soon.

I also like to sew, but with the size of our house there’s no way to keep the machine and supplies out all the time to slowly work on projects. Therefore, when I’m going to sew I have to devote enough time to it to be able to get the project finished. Otherwise my projects just sit, and sit. When you can’t devote a lot of time to your hobby it’s hard to get better. I like to sew clothes and so when I can’t devote a lot of time to sewing the clothes that I sew aren’t very good.

This weekend I was able to spend the whole weekend marathon sewing with some friends. I sewed several clothes and was so happy to be able to complete the projects. Of course these things are not runway worthy. I may end up wearing them out of the house. I was upset at first as to why my garments don’t turn out as cute as the pictures on the front of the pattern packets. I had to remind myself, that like all things in life, practice makes better.

My sewing nook this weekend. Kitty cat is making sure my chair stays warm…

I’m not interested in trying to make things perfect. Perfect only existed once, 2,000 years ago. So at least I’m not trying to achieve perfection. I would like to achieve good though. HA! It’s helpful to look at anything we do as practice. That way when we’re less than satisfied with our results, whether it be with sewing or picture taking or cooking or parenting or what have you, we can look at it and at least be ok with the fact that that experience is helping us to be better the next time. It’s a matter of always trying to learn from the experience. That is what turns it from a potential failure to practicing to be better.

Wanting to continue to practice and finding the time to actually do that are two different things. Here’s to rearranging my to do list and my house just enough to be able to fit practicing in there a little better.

My scrapbook albums and digital photo books.

These are our family’s memories, wrapped in pretty bindings and journaled with clever sayings and remembrances. When we’re old and grey and introducing ourselves to each other every day we’ll have these books to look back on and maybe spark a memory somewhere in the recesses. We have had such a blessed life and to document that is a privilege for me that I am really just beginning to take seriously.

May I never have to prove myself. May the shelf these books are on collect dust and more and more pages.

If you’d like a weekly challenge to spark your own creativity behind the lens head on over to LensProToGo and get involved with their Project52 (See their button on the left there?)! I’ve got at least three friends playing along with me. There’s a Flickr group and they post reminder blog posts and they’re even going to give a prize to everyone who participates. Woot! To me, the challenge and being able to expand my creative mind throughout the year is really the prize though.

BUT, then today the blog post was published with the detailed meaning of “favorite”.

What is the one thing you would most likely save if your house was on fire (considering your family, including all animals, were safe). If you could only keep 1 thing (again considering you could keep your family and pets) what would you want to save?

This frame, as cool as it is, wouldn’t be the one thing I would want to save. I know what I have to take a picture of now. . .

It is now the middle of January when most New Year’s resolutions have been broken. Normally, at the beginning of the year, I have this boost of electron/synapse collaboration particularly between my organizational brain cells. I get all giddy about reorganizing my life, making what I already do more efficient and adding lots of other stuff to my life and fitting it in all that space and time I created after reorganizing everything else. I’m typically a realist, but along with all 7 billion other humans, realistic expectations fly out the window come the countdown and the dropping of the ball. Then 99% of the 7 billion humans actually do drop the ball and their resolutions end up a thing of the past, almost as quickly as the countdown to midnight took.

Not this year. I wasn’t and still don’t plan on disappointing myself. I didn’t even think about making any resolutions or “goals” this year. I know some of what this year holds and I’m not going to kid myself into thinking I can all the sudden add 50 things to my daily todo list and not feel let down.

What I have kept doing though is taking pictures every day. I started a Project365 last year and actually did take one picture every day. Except maybe one day, I think. Working on that throughout the year last year got me used to carrying around my camera or pulling out my phone and snapping pics–a lot of times, just to see how I could edit them in Instagram or Hipstamatic. It has already become more of my lifestyle.

So this year I am eager to continue that Project and  challenge my creative side. I’ve signed up for two Project 52s and a Project 12*. They will give me a prompt each week/month and I’ll try to end up taking a picture to suit the given theme. What I’m hoping is that my creativity will be tested and I’ll get better about thinking outside the box. Or even thinking within the box but taking a better picture of it. The cool thing about photography is the only way to get better is to practice.

That’s the cool thing about anything, isn’t it. The cool thing about photography is your practice can result in some awesome accidents where you actually do end up growing as a photographer picture taker. (I can’t bring myself to call myself a photographer).

So, in the end, I guess I technically am making a resolution. To be more creative with my picture taking and to attempt to keep up with these photo projects. I’ve given myself the ok to skip a week or month or two. There’s no prize for completing 100%. And I can pick up where I left off. Not like the exercise thing I’ve resolved to do in the past, where you can’t actually pick up where you left off, you have to kind of do some remedial exercise to get you back to where you left off.

*The Project 12 is MCP’s Project 12 and the theme of their first month is. . . resolution!
The Project 52s are LensProToGo’s Project52 and Paint The Moon’s Let’s Do 52.
If you want to do the Project 365 download the Project365 app.

NB – Why do I look like a complete spy in the photo above? I was heading outside to capture the snowfall and decided to see what I could capture in the mirror before I stepped out. I’m glad I had just painted my nails…

Here’s hoping for warmer temps tomorrow!