Blur

April 6, 2015Leave a comment

This week’s photo challenge theme is blur. When taking pictures of kids (or at least, when taking pictures of my kids), I seem to end up with quite a few blurry pictures. Some of them are by design, but most aren’t. Thumper in particular never stops moving, so I love my cameras’ burst modes. In addition to being just plain fun, they allow me to capture great pictures of my little Energizer bunny that aren’t blurry.

blur

This picture, though, was blurry by design and features a cute moment with Miss Tadpole and Cricket. The Easter Bunny was kind enough to leave him a gift at my aunt’s house, and Miss T. thought it would be funny to look at him through the other end of his adorable binoculars. She was right – everyone got a kick out of it, including Cricket.

I hope you all had a fantastic Easter!

Photo Friday throwback: The late edition

April 4, 20154 Comments

This weekend, man. Talk about busy! I meant to share this last night when I got back from the last fish fry of 2015, but I was so tired I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

Anyway, since it’s Easter weekend, this week’s throwback photo is Easter-themed. It was taken on Easter Sunday in 1991 at my aunt’s house, right after my sister, my cousin, and I had finished our Easter egg hunt. My aunt must have been the one who took this picture because my grandparents and my mom are all sitting on the steps with us (along with my cousin’s grandpa). My mom and my grandpa were huge photography buffs, as is my aunt, so family get-togethers when I was growing up involved many, many pictures. And if we were getting together with my great-aunt and her family? More cameras.

You can see where I get my shutterbug-ism from. 🙂

Did you hunt Easter eggs when you were a kid?

Photo 365 #236

March 31, 20154 Comments

That’s right, I’m still waxing poetic about the weather. It’s another lovely day out there, and I’ve got a nice, long lunch break ahead of me to fill with stories to my heart’s content.

productive

More of this is definitely in store today. I can’t wait to get out there and enjoy the sunshine of another world for a little while! 🙂

How about you – what do you enjoy doing on beautiful sunny days?

Photo 365 #235

March 30, 20154 Comments

It is an absolutely glorious day out there. It’s so pretty, it’s hard to believe it’s actually a Monday. Well, sort of. After a crazy busy weekend full of family and fun, my brain’s a bit fried, so maybe it’s not all that hard to believe it’s really Monday after all. 🙂

Anyway.

sunburst

See? Told you it was gorgeous. It’s pushing 70 and beautiful out there, and I wish I didn’t have to stay chained to my desk for another four hours so that I could go outside and enjoy myself. Maybe the fresh air would wake my brain up.

On the bright side, I did get out there during my lunch break. Beautiful sky, sunny day, writing progress – it was a great lunch. Too bad it couldn’t have lasted longer. 🙂

Photo 365 #234

March 29, 2015March 27, 20156 Comments

One of the things I love to read in the spring (yes, there are a couple of them) is my collection of Shakespearean sonnets. I don’t know why, but poetry and spring are inextricably linked for me (which works out well, since April is National Poetry Month).

Though I love the plays, the sonnets are the thing for me. I’m terrible at writing them, but Shakespeare was a master wordsmith and every time I open this book, I marvel at his ability. I actually have two collections of his sonnets – the volume pictured is a complete collection, while the one it replaced contained only selected poems – and I treasure them both.

If you like Shakespeare’s poetry, might I recommend this site? I found it the other afternoon and it’s got loads of neat stuff. Spend a day getting lost in it, or perhaps another book. Have a great day! 🙂

Photo 365 #233

March 28, 2015March 27, 20152 Comments

We’ve had two beautiful days in a row. It’s so pretty outside!

tulip

Okay, so it’s a little chilly, but still – the sun is shining, there’s not a cloud in the sky (that I can see without my sunglasses), and it makes one feel good to be alive. Much like this pretty, pretty tulip. 🙂

Photo Friday besties edition, round 3

March 27, 2015March 27, 20155 Comments

This week’s throwback is from my senior year of high school. I find it hard to believe that this picture is thirteen years old, but the date stamp in the bottom corner doesn’t lie.

Or does it? 😛

You couldn’t beat the Rollerdrome for a good time.

This girl, y’all. We’ve been best friends since kindergarten. Whatever life throws at us, we get through it together. She’s the kind of friend you don’t find often, and ours is the kind of friendship that you hold onto with both hands and don’t let go of.

So here’s to another twenty-six years of being best friends. And may our kids have the kind of relationship that our moms had and that we have, because that would just be awesome. 🙂

How long have you been friends with your best pal? Do you have any lifelong friends?

Don’t forget to check out Charnele’s throwback post!

Photo 365 #232

March 27, 20154 Comments

Last night, Seymour and Bubbles spent the remaining light of day playing catch out in the yard. Cricket, not one to be left behind, was desperate to go outside and join them. I snapped this as he was hurrying through getting his shoes and coat on. He was so excited that I had to be quick with the camera if I wanted to capture even a bit of his joy.

I imagine I might look a bit like this come five o’clock this evening… 🙂

Photo 365 #231: Trials and tribulations

March 26, 2015March 25, 20154 Comments

After months of only creeping, inching progress on my rewrite, I’ve finally managed to stitch together two parts of my book with all-new material. Writing the all-new stuff was like pulling teeth; the words often flat-out refused to come.

I hate when writing is like that.

Nevertheless, I pushed through it. I’m fairly certain that most of what I wrote is rubbish, but that’s what revising is for, right? Polishing up the parts you don’t like?

At long last, I’m back to the polishing part. The writing is going much more smoothly now that I’m in full-on polishing mode. Still, part of me can’t believe how bad some of what I’d written is. There are parts that are positively purple; they remind me of the steady diet of soap operas I consumed as a teenager. There are parts that just don’t read quite right, for some reason; they have me in agony as I can’t quite figure out what’s wrong, never mind how to fix them.

And then there are the parts that just make me cringe, like whole-body, might-possibly-be-mistaken-for-a-seizure-type cringing. People’s Exhibit A: the two-paragraph section where I started four consecutive sentences with the word he. Talk about an epic facepalm moment.

*cringe*

*groans*

*cries*

For the most part, I love writing. I love the act of writing, the sheer physical quality of my pencil scratching out worlds across the paper; I love rewriting and making things shine. But at the moment, I seem mired in the depths of suck, where everything is hard and it’s not looking to improve any time soon. Maybe it’s because I’m exhausted and stressed about things other than writing; maybe it’s because I’ve been working on this story for ten years and I don’t feel any closer to finishing it now than I did when I started it.

Whatever the reason, I’m ready to be overwhelmed by the joy of writing again. It’s been a long while since I’ve experienced the euphoria of having written something that you know in the marrow of your bones is good. It’s addicting, that feeling.

I know I’ll find it again, but when everything else is so gray, too, it’s hard to bear that in mind. In the meantime, thank goodness for things like this:

If you’re worried about not being good enough? Hey, let’s remember, I wasn’t good enough for 17 years. (If you read some of my negative reviews, then ha ha ha, oops, I’m still not good enough.) … Keep at it. Eventually you’ll knock over that brick wall if you commit to the vigorous act of endless headbutting. -Chuck Wendig

Check out the whole article here. It’s well worth the read.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to the vigorous act of endless headbutting.

*grabs economy-size bottle of ibuprofen*

*scampers off to writing cave*

Photo 365 #230

March 25, 20158 Comments

Well, so much for it being spring…

spikyice

We’ve had two ice storms since the official beginning of spring. Neither one have been too severe, but they’ve been bad enough to make getting around a pain in the butt. It rained yesterday, but it was just cold enough that the rain froze on whatever it hit. When I got home from work last night, even the grass was slick.

At least it’s supposed to warm up next week…