Photo 365 #106: Landscape

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I love landscapes.  I think the majority of pictures I take are either of my kids or landscapes (49% landscapes, 49% kids, 2% other).  Iowa is such a beautiful place that I can’t help whipping out my camera (either of them) and capturing the glories of nature.

quixotic

As previously mentioned, I also love sunsets.  The arrival of snow is seriously hindering my ability to capture them through the break in the trees that form the western borderline of our property.

I may or may not have mentioned, however, that I’m not fond of the wind farms that are springing up all over the area (seriously, I can’t remember if I’ve talked about it or not).  There’s one that stretches for a good ten miles south of where I live, and the blinking red line on the night horizon is one I find quite annoying.  Now there’s another one that mars the northern horizon on my way to work.  If this keeps up, I’ll be living in the middle of a wind farm inside of ten years.

Still, I do like the silhouettes these particular turbines made against the darkening night sky.  And I love the hint of blurriness evident near the horizon and the edges of the turbine blades; it makes the whole scene feel a bit dreamy and surreal.  When I took this picture, I was reminded of Don Quixote tilting at windmills, and I love it when nature makes me think of books.

What do your favorite landscape photos depict?

(c) 2014.  All rights reserved.

 

Photo 365 #105: Swarm

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The first time I met Seymour’s extended family was at his annual family reunion.  He has a big family.  I know people always think they have a big family (I sure thought so, even though I was including my grandma’s brother’s family in my head count), but Seymour really does – his dad was one of 13 kids.  Reunions always used to be held at a nearby state park due to the number of people who’d come and, while it seems like fewer people have come the last couple of years, there’s still quite a crowd.

So we pull into this park and start looking around.  There are people everywhere, but he can’t see anyone he recognizes, and the only people there that I know aside from him and our kids are his parents.  Finally, he turns to me and says, “Are we in the right place?”

I looked at him like, Really? You’re asking me?

Photo 365 #104: Moment

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Life is but a series of moments.  Each day I find myself recording moments for posterity, though sometimes my recordings are strictly internal (which means they usually disappear within 24 hours, as my memory is terrible).  Still, those little moments are what make life worth living, are they not?

“Peek-a-boo!”
“Raaaaaar!”

These two images are from the first night we spent in our new house.  We had no furniture, other than a collapsible picnic table and an air mattress.  What we did have were great friends and happy kids, and we made a boatload of memories that night.  We’ve made more memories in our new house in the year since these pictures were taken, and the thought of all the memories we’ve yet to make thrills me to pieces.

(c) 2014.  All rights reserved.

Revised!

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I finally got around to revising my first page, as posted here for Michelle Hauck’s first page critique blog hop.  It’s taken a lot of time, a lot of thought, and a lot of quiet to get something figured out, but I think it’s good.  It’s longer, but less wordy, and hopefully, more showy and less telly.  Either way, it wouldn’t be what it is without your input, so thank you very much!

I’ve posted the revision at the top of the original post (clearly marked so you know what’s what), and would love some comments on the revision as well.  Because, you know, we writers are nothing if not insecure.  But on the off chance that you don’t feel like digging back through ten days of blog posts, I’ve also posted it for your reading pleasure below.

***

“Please, your Highness, have mercy.  I beg you.”

“I would very much like to, sir,” Prince Vegin said.

Photo 365 #103: Architecture

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I’m lucky to work in a town full of wonderful old Victorian houses.  There are two of them within a couple of blocks of my office, and they’re just gorgeous (there might actually be a couple others), despite the massive hailstorm that hit the area five years ago.  But I’m not at work today, so I can’t take a picture of either of them decked out in their snowy glory.

I have a few pictures of a beautiful church I saw this summer, but I was shooting on the fly and most of the pictures came out either blurry or crooked.  Then I thought of all the pictures I have of our house, both our old one and our new one, but they’re really nothing special (the pictures, that is, not the houses).  Straight-on shots of one, a few different angles on the other as we were painting it this summer, but nothing great.   Still, they got me thinking…

Photo 365 #102: A pop of color

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Over the summer, we had a potted impatien out in front of our office.  It was a lovely thing, and when the temps turned colder, we brought it inside.  But sitting just inside the door as it was proved detrimental to its health, and it withered.

One of my coworkers brought it inside and set it near the window in our coat room.  She’s got a much greener thumb than I have, and decided to try nursing it back to health.

winterbloom

Last week, we noticed a bloom.  A couple days later, there was another one.  This morning, I counted four or five, and those are just on the side of the plant I can see – the side facing the window appears to have a few more blooms on it.

Now that we’ve got a bit of snow on the ground, it’s a treat to see something so bright and different amid the white.

(c) 2014.  All rights reserved.

Photo 365 #101

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We had our first significant snowfall this weekend, and as a result, we didn’t go anywhere for most of the weekend (the lone exception being a trip to the store this morning for some milk).  I was quite happy to stay inside because it was brutally cold outside (though it wasn’t a whole lot better inside), and yesterday the roads were quite slick.

Miss Tadpole is concentrating awfully hard. 🙂
That blur just above the blue robot is his head flying off. 🙂

Instead, we stayed inside and played with the newfangled Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em Robots that Bubbles got last year for Christmas.  It was certainly an entertaining way to spend the afternoon, and the boys loved watching Bubbles and Miss Tadpole pop each other’s heads off. 🙂

How did you spend your weekend?

(c) 2014.  All rights reserved.

Photo 365 #100

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Last night was Miracle on Main, my hometown’s annual Christmas kickoff.  Among other activities, they had a whole room set aside for Santa to see visitors:

santa

Thumper didn’t say a whole lot, but that was okay, because Cricket did all the talking for him. 🙂  It was quite possibly the most adorable Santa encounter I’ve ever witnessed (at least with my kids).

Do your kids like going to see Santa?  Or do they scream in terror at the sight of him?

(c) 2014.  All rights reserved.

It’s excerpt time!

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Fifth WatcherThat’s right, today’s the day where you get a sneak peak at The Fifth Watcher, Book One of Melissa Barker-Simpson’s Worlds Apart series.  But how did this story come to be?  Well, let’s hear it from the author herself:

I wrote the Fifth Watcher during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) last year. It’s taken a while to get it ready for publication, but there are a few reasons for that. The novel was originally written in third person perspective, and during the first edit I decided to change it to first – not an easy task!

The premise for the story came to me following a discussion with my sister about alternate realities. I saw the protagonist of this tale clearly in my mind and Audrey Montgomery was born. I didn’t give much thought to the  name, it’s who she is. My grandmother’s name is Audrey too, and though both are strong, formidable women, I didn’t base the character on her.

As I like to do…