I apologize

Sorry for not posting more lately. Been fairly busy then came down with the flu. So please bare with me while I recover. I'll try to post something interesting real soon.

What more could happen in 20 minutes?...

First I'd like to say that our son has always been a fairly sure-footed fella. Our house in perched on a slope so our yard is pretty steep in certain areas. But that never stopped him, not since he learned to walk. When most kids would have tumbled down the yard, he ran.

Now I know his face has had a few run-ins with the ground. Yikes boy do I know (remember I'm up to a count of 4 times now!). But really he's not toooo accident prone.

That being said, he does have his moments.

Last week the weather here was beautiful! C had gone to preschool on Thursday as usual. His buddy N was coming over and they wanted my niece to come over after school. So when I went to get C and N when preschool was out we decided to stay for the half hour and wait for M.A. and just take her home with us instead of making her ride the bus to my house.
Things were going good, but shortly after taking this wonderful shot of C running I hear him start crying and he limps his way towards me. He'd twisted his ankle.

But being the tough little nut that he is it was right back to playing for him.

So he and N and another little school buddy got on the slide so I could take some action shots. They were really cheesing it up for me. Enjoying being in the spot light. Then one (I'm not sure who the guilty one was) decided it would be a great idea to go down the slide head first.

Then this happened. Apparently the plastic slide needs a good coating of wax. C's upper body stopped short of the bottom of the slide, but well, as you can see, his feet didn't. Being the human being that I am I couldn't help but find the humour in this and started laughing. Until, that was, C's body finally made it too the bottom and he started crying because his back hurt. Ah yes, two incidents within about 10 minutes of each other. Poor kid.

Oh wait, I'm not done. Like I said, he's a tough nut so he had a bout of self pity and pain for a few minutes then was right back playing with the other boys. They decided that maybe the small slide would be a good idea instead:

So I'm snapping more shots, getting a real 'feel' for the camera ya know when C emerges from the hole at the top of the slide.

And--take a close look at the photo---notice where is knee is and where his head is in proportion to where it should be to make a successful run down a slide--he takes a head dive to the ground!! I didn't get a photo of the actual fall. And after all those accidents it may be a good thing. Amazingly he popped up off the ground, laughing and telling me how 'that one didn't even hurt'. UGH. I laughed with him while shaking my head, and putting the lens cap back on the camera.

So I'm thinkin' maybe I jinxed him in some way by having the camera there. That must be it, because really, really he is usually such a sure-footed boy.

Learning

In the past few days I've learned a few things.

1. I'm pretty positive I'm addicted to flickr.com

2. We all have our clumsy moments....even it it's a truely moment by moment by moment event

3. I'm in love with my new camera--I think it's mutual

4. I love re-connecting with family members and friends

6. and I've learned that this friggin' house does not clean its self!!!!

Experimentation

I find myself really enjoying my new camera! Over the weekend I messed around with it a bit and read some of the manual that came with it. It's so great, now if I only could devote every waking minute to becoming one with the little black beauty I would be in photo heaven.

This picture I took intrigued me a bit. I was at my friend MM's house and her son had a few toys out....I had to shoot. Well, I couldn't take anymore shots of the people there---they were getting a little tired of my camera antics. So I got down on the floor and snapped this one of a Kenworth semi. Now if you just happen to glance at this photo you might think it was a real truck. I like that. I was messing around with the macro setting and I'm liking the results.

Needless to say, this is a very fun hobby. Especially when I don't have to pay to develop a whole roll of film to find only one good photo. Now, any of you want to share your shots???

Intimidated

Okay so I have to say...this camera is...WOW! I'll be posting a few pics soon. As soon as I figure out this thing that is.

There is so much to work with, so much to learn. I'm dedicating myself to this very thing today. Okay, maybe there are a few things I should get done around her first, i.e. laundry, bills, taxes, filing, feeding the kid, letting the dog and cat out, letting them back in, back out, in, out, in......Argh! I'm trying to convince the hubby to just install a revolving door.

So, off to do all those things and more. I'll update hopefully later today. Stay tuned...

I love old photos. I do. I spent a few hours the other day going through old family albums at my in-laws. Brought a few home and this is one of the ones I picked to scan, it will eventually find it's way into a frame and onto my wall.

The people in this photo are my husbands great, great paternal grandparents and this shot was taken in 1917 shortly before the man passed. The man's name is Sam and rumor has it (there are records I guess) that he opened the first post office in Scio, OR. There is so much character in their faces! I've scanned more and will be touching them up slightly, but they really are frame worthy just as they are.

I'm also hoping to be taking some of my own 'frame worthy' photos soon. YES, the wonderful Canon Powershot SX10 IS is on it's way to me as I write this. I am one pumped up person.

Giddy really.

So for now I'll settle with playing with photo editing software and old photos....until my new camera arrives. (Or maybe I should be cleaning house and paying bills.....nah, but it was a thought.)

A day of angst

I'm so glad that my son is only 5. Right now he doesn't know what it's like to not receive a Valentines from someone he really likes. It's coming though. Today is his first Valentines party at preschool. I recall the angst of not getting a card in the box I had made from that cute little boy 3 rows over sitting by the coat rack. Or those girls that I so wanted to be friends with but who shunned me because....well I'll never know the exact reason.

It's things like this that I would love to protect my son from. Then I wonder why I feel that way. I'm fine, I made it through and only have a small fraction of scars on my soul from it. I think we tend to coddle our children too much. I believe they should learn from rejection and loss. Sure I don't want him hurt in any way, but that's inevitable and I'll try to be realistic about it.

More angst for me though. I'm waiting to see if I'm the winning bidder on a camera that I've fallen in love with. Only 1hr and 40 minutes left.....arrggghh.

Then this morning I'll be driving my mother to her sister's house in Portland so they can be together at the hospital when my uncle (their brother) goes in for open-heart surgery. It's going to be okay.....it's got to be okay. Last year mom lost a brother, sister in-law (wife of the brother who's having surgery) and an aunt. Not a great year for her.

So I sit here anxiously waiting for the auction to end so I can either be giddy with anticipation for being the proud owner of said camera OR sad because I'll have to go on the hunt again........I digress.....I need more coffee!

Burnt Buns in the Snow

No, I did not run into some renegade beach bum with speedos on with blistered 'cheeks'. No, instead as I was doing laundry this morning I looked out at the beautiful snow scene and the blanket of white covering our back deck--again. What caught my eye was neither human, nor consumable...

It was quite literally burnt buns in the snow. The other night I had made hamburgers. Dear hubby likes said buns to be 'toasted' under the broiler. Well, like the good wife I am I got distracted and when husband bounded out of his chair I then noticed the smoke billowing from the oven. Needless to say, this is where he put the charred little buggers--not even the birds will touch 'em.

A start...

Oh, I am so longing for the days when we can run outside and play in the warm sunshine. Instead we stoke the wood furnace, scrape ice from the windshield and hope it won't snow too much tomorrow.

"Keep it real," I tell myself. It is still winter after all. This photo makes me long for summer though.

It was partly sunny today, so on the way into a dr.'s appointment I cranked the radio and belted out some great tunes. But during an especially loud rendition of 'Lucille' by Kenny Rogers I had to chuckle to myself as I recalled lyrics from my childhood. You see, in the line 'you picked a fine time to leave me Lucille, with four hungry children and a crop in the field' my young ears had heard 'four-hundred children'. I clearly reasoned this by thinking the man in the song ran some kind of orphanage. Oh, so many songs that our ears misinterpret, I could go on about his topic for pages....but I won't.

Today was pretty good all in all. The assistant at the clinic was a little grumpy but I'll forgive her considering I was told her dog was being put to sleep today so I can sympathize. But things went well until our son "C" (little guy in the photo) decided to fall and bite his tongue.

Now, anyone who knows C has probably lost count on how many times this little man has fallen on his be-dimpled face, knocking teeth loose and splitting lips. Okay, well mom kept count and we're up to four!! This time he ended up with a nice trio of puncture wounds on his tongue. Needless to say I could NEVER be a nurse considering the fact that the bleeding and screaming about did me in.



Nice of mom to take a picture huh? Well, it really looks worse in person and now he's complaining that it's bleeding again---off to try to play nurse momma again.....