Photo 365 #93

November 8, 20142 Comments

Alas, poor pencil, you’ve served me well:

sadpencil

I’ve had this pencil for at least a decade (perhaps slightly longer). I’ve written more stories with it than I can count, and a fair few books, too. Sadly, it cannot be replaced – while they still make this particular model, the grip is no longer smooth, but patterned, and it irritates my fingers after a while. Luckily, I’ve got a backup, but one day it, too, will go the way of its brother, and then I’ll be forced to replace it with the patterned grip pencil that I don’t like.

Of course, the patterned grip is still better than the dozens of other mechanical pencil styles available.

Rest in peace, oh pencil mine. You’ve earned it.

Photo Friday: Minimalist

November 7, 20143 Comments

IMG_20131205_112005 I checked my calendar this morning and realized that – horror of horrors! – Charnele and I are out of prompts for our Photo Friday feature.

Whoops.

But then I saw that this week’s photo challenge is all about minimalism, and guess what? I just happen to have something that fits the bill. It’s a picture of the frozen condensation on my bathroom window one morning last winter. Sadly, I awoke to find condensation on the inside of the windows in our new house this morning, and it’s not even that cold yet (although we did finally break down and turn on the heat yesterday).

I hate to think what it’ll be like in another month or so when winter is in full swing.

Photo 365 #92: Solitude

November 7, 20142 Comments

solitary Living in the country can be a lonely thing, which is why I was initially worried about living out in the middle of nowhere again (okay, I had other concerns, too, but isolation was a biggie). This fence post (and the barbed wire wrapped around it) marks the end of our yard and the beginning of the field next door.

It’s a solitary place, our little farm, but I find it relaxing, and peaceful. Sometimes a little solitude is all you really need to soothe your inner demons and gain perspective on things.

Photo 365 #91: Bliss

November 6, 2014November 7, 20143 Comments

Happy farm boy is happy. 🙂

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Seymour as happy as he was when we moved to our farm in the spring. He’s been looking for an acreage since we got married and now, five years later, he’s finally got one.

I was less interested in moving to the country than he was, but it’s been a lot different than my last experience of country life. I feel much more relaxed than I did in town, even though things like getting the kids to piano lessons were much easier when we lived in town.

Still, he gave town a try for me, so now I’m giving the country a try for him. Because that’s what you do. And no matter where you go or what you do, it’s who is beside you that counts. 🙂

Photo 365 #90: Water

November 5, 20142 Comments

Water. It’s everywhere, both around us and within us, in one form or another. For today’s Photography 101 challenge, I’m once again relying on older pictures, but they’re two of my favorites, and they’ve been in my mind quite a bit lately.

Both photos are from one of our many camping trips last summer. We haven’t been able to go camping this year at all, aside from the kids camping out in the yard a time or two when it was still warm. We did, however, find some adorable camping-themed picture frames this summer on our trip up north, so Seymour asked me to get a couple of our camping pictures printed off to put in them. Perfectly enough for this challenge, one frame was horizontal and one frame was vertical.

Lovely horizontal picture, featuring a pretty smile from Miss Tadpole. 🙂

Last summer we camped at Pine Lake several times and on our first trip…

Photo 365 #89: Street

November 4, 2014November 4, 201423 Comments

A few months ago, I hosted a Pampered Chef party (I wanted an apple peeler/corer/slicer and figured this was a smart way to get one for a reasonable price). When the orders arrived, I was able to deliver most of them in one stop, but one of the orders required a drive to Holland (a nearby town, not the country). Because it was the middle of road construction season and the road into town was closed for bridge repair, I had to go north of town, then west, and come in from the northwest corner.

The sun was setting as I made my delivery and it was so beautiful that I pulled over to catch it before it was gone. When I shoot the sunset, I love to get it alone, with just the horizon or maybe a tree or two for company. I love the wild places where humanity’s fingerprint on the land is a light one. But I got the road with it in this shot, and the power lines running into town, and the more I look at this picture, the more I like it.

What do you like in a landscape shot?

Photo 365 #88: Home

November 3, 20144 Comments

Today is the first day of the Photography 101 course on WordPress, and I’m really looking forward to participating. There are supposed to be a bunch of tips and tricks, and frankly, I can use all the photography tips and tricks I can get. There are also different themes, and today’s theme is all about home.

For me, home is more than just a place to rest your rump. Home is where your story begins, and stories are all about people. I can’t imagine home, whether in town or in the country or even on the moon, without these crazies with whom I share space:

: Thumper and Cricket are enthralled by Scooby Doo.

: This guy’s had my back for so long now I’m forgetting what life was like before him. 🙂

: Tadpole and Bubbles like to get up to all sorts of shenanigans.

These guys have given me more stories than I know what to do with, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. What does home mean to you?

Photo 365 #87

November 2, 2014October 29, 20144 Comments

I love lazy Sundays. And since I’m feeling a bit lazy today, I don’t know what to write here other than I can’t believe it’s November already.

Another beautiful start to another gorgeous day.

Today was the kind of day that makes one glad to be alive.

I love Iowa. That is all.

That tree is on fire…

I could have watched this sunset forever.

Enjoy the pretty, pretty pictures! Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have more to say. 🙂

Photo 365 #86

November 1, 2014October 29, 20142 Comments

Shadow is such a sweet kitty. I wish we could have him inside (stupid allergies).

“I can jump that…”

“Oh, yeah, this is the life.”

Kitty paws!

Occasionally he (and the others) are allowed into my office for cuddles and petting, but they don’t get any further (although Socks tried to escape into the dining room Tuesday afternoon). Tuesday evening, though, Shadow came in for cockle burr removal therapy. Poor thing had a bunch of cockle burrs stuck in his tail. I tried just pulling them out, but that wasn’t working real well, so then I resorted to the brush. But pulling turned out to be more effective, so I ended up pulling the rest of them out and then brushing the remaining few stickers from his tail.

This is the biggest reason why we didn’t want a long-hair kitty when we embarked on the Great Kitten Hunt over the summer, but Shadow is such a sweet, lovey guy that I can’t imagine not having him (even if he is relegated to the great outdoors). Still, I miss the days when I had lap kitties. 🙂

Photo Friday: Halloween!

October 31, 2014Leave a comment

That’s right, it’s All Hallows’ Eve. For the first time in a very long time, we didn’t hand out candy tonight. Not that we ever had many kids stop at our house before, but since we’re in the country now, it seemed rather pointless to buy candy for trick-or-treaters who will never stop.

This is also the first year we took Cricket and Thumper trick-or-treating. I found a Scooby Doo costume for Thumper at a local secondhand shop, and Cricket went as his best pal, Shaggy. Miss Tadpole was a goddess, and Bubbles wore his football uniform, a Rebel football player one last time (this year, anyway). He went trick-or-treating with his dad, though, so I’ll have to wait a year to get a picture of all four of them together in their costumes.

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The boys were disappointed this morning when I wouldn’t let them wear their costumes to daycare, but while my stitching was good enough to hold up through this evening’s candy hunt, I didn’t trust it to hold out all day, especially the way Thumper likes to romp around (his costume required a bit of sewing (by which I mean about four hours’ worth because I had to hand sew it all) to make it wearable). I needn’t have worried, though – he faceplanted while tearing down a darkened street on the final leg of tonight’s journey and split a seam in his shoulder, but my stitching held up perfectly. 🙂

What do you do for Halloween? Do you hand out candy, or take the kids around, or both, or neither? Don’t forget to check out Charnele’s blog and see what she’s up to on this spooky holiday. Happy Halloween! 🙂