When You Need A Smile...

:)

A Picture Post!

I have always had an interest in photography but always lacked the time, energy, and willpower to actually learn how to use a camera well. And then I grew up, and digital cameras took over, and point and shoot (and instantly review and print!) became the norm, and suddenly even idiots like me could take passable, and occasionally even good, pictures.

I thought I'd share with you some of the pictures I've taken in the last few months with my new Kodak EasyShare C180, some artsy, some documentary, and some just for fun. :)



Isn't this a fun texture? I love the texture of denim, especially denim that's just a teensy bit worn, like my fav skirt!



I have been visualizing this portrait every since the rest of my family went to Texas last year and brought back pictures flooded with awesome beach light. My sister Anna has gorgeous long curly hair and fair skin, and I knew the combination of light and wind would make a terrific shot!




I likewise love these pictures... Anna is very strong and athletic and I love the lines of this photo.



A quickie self-portrait! We actually had to hold the camera upside down in order to be able to line it up properly!



Don't ask me why, but last week when Anna and I pulled up at the co-op I noticed how beautiful the raindrops were on these red bushes. I didn't know my camera was capable of capturing the nice color and wet shine, but it was!



Anna's cat Ranger has such beautiful lines on her face... I can't believe I forgot to turn off the date/time stamp!

I am looking forward to continuing on in my little hobby. I think I understand a little bit the phrase "photographer's eye" since I'm starting to see a photo in everything around me - even in parking lot gravel. Yes, I stopped today to photograph parking lot gravel.

A Little Bit of Rhyme

Just a poem I've been working on today instead of a real post... because I'm lazy! :)


Exhaustion is a burden -
I mean this literally.
It has a precise weight, an exact shape
and rests between the shoulders
As anyone knows who has worked until their feet
and soul, were sore.

Fair Weather!

Although I have fond, fond childhood memories of going to the county fair as a child (back when our family was a family of four or five, before we became a family of eight), I probably haven't been in more than a decade. For some reason this year my family has rediscovered the county fair - my dad took the kids last night while my mom and I holed up after a really long night with a movie, and today Maggie and I went to explore.



Ok - let me just take this opportunity to say that I love Southern Maryland and, while I love to travel, love to go places and see things and explore the difference, I like coming home to a place that is vibrant and beautiful and often undervalued. I like being a native. I realize that for the first time in my life do I really feel like I'm part of a community, and it's a good feeling.

Now, back to the fair...



We started off our exploration in the livestock barns. While I gravitate towards cute furry animals, Maggie loves big ugly animals. I don't understand this. But she insisted on having her picture taken by the cows. She loves cows and wants one, and is continually thinking about ways to fit one onto our little hobby farm. Despite the fact that she and five other people in our family of eight are severely allergic to everything dairy. Like I said, I don't get it.



We both agreed that this adorable teddy-bear-faced sheep was one of the cutest things we'd ever seen. He was posing right up until I got out my camera and then suddenly turned away, so I took half a dozen pictures trying to capture his cuteness.



Piggies count as big and ugly in my book, but these sleeping pair were kind of cute...





See that beak peeking out? Yes, this is a chicken. I believe he was distantly related in some way to the late Poufy (the name says it all, but I will try to go and find a photo later when one of the kids are around) whom we had for a short time this summer before his untimely disappearance.



Maggie also posed beside the giant pumpkin winner. This is one of those displays that I can remember as a kid... but they seemed bigger back them! :)

I never remember going into the art displays as a child, but Maggie and I did go in and we found some real winners! I love art anyway, so to be surrounded by amateur art was like heaven!

This painting won first place in the middle school category... I absolutely love it, so much so that I checked the label for a "seller info" tab, but there was none. If it had been for sale I would have bought it if I could have possibly afforded it. The picture cannot begin to show the beauty.



I also thought this picture was fun... it looks inspired by Marcel Duchamp's "Nude Descending A Staircase" which has always been one of my favorite pictures. This one appears to be a person playing a guitar.



And... just because I'm a nerd and I love mod art (take that, John Patrick!) I loved this piece. It reminds me vaguely of my father's computer workshop when I was small, and all the components and motherboards, etc.



All in all, I enjoyed the fair greatly! Even a little rain that fell while we were watching the pig and duck racing (yes, pig and duck racing) didn't hamper my fun.

On to more news...



I'm not the only one playing with new clothes this weekend - Ranger got a new sweater! It seems like whenever I have way too much to do anyway, I get the urge to crochet. I think it was the cool weather we had today... or looking through old photos of Colby the Chihuahua in the sweaters I made him last year... but I suddenly got an irresistable itch for yarn. No harm, no foul - it only took about an hour, and I really did complete everything else I had to get done. :)





Isn't he cute?

All Hail... The Weekend!

And let the weekend begin! Not a moment too soon!

Our brand new manager looked at me as I bought coffee after work and sympathised, "This has been a pretty rotten week for you, hasn't it?" to which I had to agree. He then brightened up a little and added, "Well, at least I can honestly say you've kept smiling through everything!"

This is true. I have kept smiling, even when I felt like crying, yelling, sulking, snapping, or whining. It felt like the universe was struggling against me this week... I was relatively good-natured about it, figuring it would right itself with a little time, but even today (which I had banked on as a good-day sure-thing) turned out to be fraught with roadblocks. Gah! I've finally decided it's just one of those weeks that you write off, forget, and start again come Monday.

Except that... I have this very awful feeling that next week is going to be a do-over of this one. For starters, I have two days where I'm scheduled to work at 3:30 AM. I don't know... somehow I thought I had given up third shift, but arriving at work at 3:30 AM seems awfully third-shifty to me. Secondly, one of our managers is on vacation this week, which means my usual manager has been pushed to second shift all week, and things just never seem to run quite right when he's absent for longer than a day or so. And lastly, we are starting a brand new promotion at work on Monday, so we will be even busier than normal. I'm no prophet, but this does not seem like a recipe for a good time.

My plans for the weekend? I just returned from a quick errand run, and I now intend to go crawl onto a comfy king-size bed and watch movies with my mom (which is a rare, rare occurrence). I brought home "Boy In The Striped Pajamas" from the library, and on a whim grabbed "Wait Until After Dark" not realizing it was a thriller. All the better. :) Now all I need is a pair of hot mitts to protect my newly DIY-manicured nails and I'm good!

I intend to sleep in tomorrow... heh... and then Maggie and I are going to go explore the county fair with a friend of mine from work. In the afternoon, I have two projects to work on, one for our homeschool co-op and one for work, and I also need to get my act together for my classes on Tuesday (I seem to run through my time way faster than I want to... time to learn to manager my class better).

On Sunday I have church as usual, and in the afternoon I will be delivering promotional materials for work. Sunday afternoon, I have a rehearsal for our church musical program, then I will run, run, RUN home to bed for a few hours of sleep before getting back up again at 2 AM - ugh! - and begin my week again.

I hope that everyone has a terrific weekend and a week that is more restful than mine! :)

I So Severely Need A Nap... Part II?

Two posts about being tired in a row? Apparently so! :) Suffice to say I love teaching, but Tuesdays are really, really long.

First, a couple of resources... Sarah over at the Chic Mummy blog is offering a special deal for ABCTeach.com membership. I've blogged about how much I love ABCTeach before, and this deal cuts the $40 membership down to $20/year. Worth it. Do it. Let me know how much you love it. :)

Also, I just got an email announcing that Adam Andrews of The Center for Literacy Education is offering free shipping on his worldview supplement curriculum, which will equip you to take your literary criticism to a higher level, answering questions such as, "What does this story say about the nature of man? What sort of a person is God? Can man control his own destiny? What is love? What is beauty? Can we agree with the answers this story gives?" I have it, and I have loaned it out - that's how good it is. It comes with a set of DVD's that demonstrate the use of this supplement. Again, worth it.

As to my life... I've been dealing with some issues and questions in my life lately that have left me, quite frankly, drained. I have finally just come to grips with this and decided that rather than try and push through and accomplish everything, I am just going to try to rework my to-do list to a more realistic scale and take a little extra downtime.

In that spirit, I spent the weekend at home rather than running errands or trying to accomplish everything in sight. Instead, I slept in and spent the day alternately curled up with my sister (who I feel I haven't really 'seen' much lately, due to my crazy work schedule and her multiple appointments) watching Stargate: SG1, spending my small bursts of energy cleaning my room and getting my closet/wardrobe autumnized. I wondered while I was purposefully "wasting time" if I would regret not "cramming" in some more tasks, but in hindsight I am so glad I did. Somehow having my space neat and organized, and being able to tell at an instant what's clean and what's in the laundry makes everything else go so much more smoothly.

The rest of my week's "to do list" includes putting together a care package for a friend, organizing my "Favorites" tab so I can actually locate and use all the resources I've collected, and starting up my reading habit again. I need to remember to feed and rest my soul - I need to be learning and reading, but I feel like I often lose sight of that as a goal in the midst of other things. On the other hand, when my inner self is being taken care of, all the external "tasks" just seem to be so much more manageable. Something to remind myself of.

I so severely need a nap...

I was lamenting to one of my friends today that though the last three years of being a full-time student were crazy, busy, and hard, I somehow always made it home for an hour-long nap between morning/afternoon classes and evening classes. I miss napping sometimes. :) Today was definitely one of those days where I could have easily snuggled up for a little snooze... but that was completely impossible!

Today was the first day of our church's homeschool co-op. I was (and am!) sooo exited, as this is my only "first day of school" I'll be getting this year.



Although she wouldn't admit it, I think Anna (who was a little nervous about her first day with a teacher she hadn't met) had fun packing our lunches - red pepper vegan hummus from McKay's and veggies for dipping - since, as homeschoolers, we rarely get this pleasure.





Of course, it helped that I tucked in a Peanut Chew bar - the only commercially made candy bar that is milk free! - as a back to school treat.






Ruth was a little jealous. :)








Check out my awesome lunchbag! My best friend, who has gone all creative and artsy on me, designed this bag for my birthday, and I have turned it into my lunchbag as it's just the perfect size for my little bento lunchbox (which I seem to have lost all the little containers out of - boo).

This weekend was really long and busy... you know it's been a long weekend when you're excited about going back to work so you can take it easy! :)

One of the things I love about going back to teaching is the chance to network with other folks who have the same passion for teaching, and the sharing of resources that inevitably follows. I was excited to be able to share some of the treasures I'd found over the summer, like Andrew Adam's Center for Literacy Education and his incredible teaching materials, as well as some terrific thrift-store finds. It's just another reminder that my passion for language and teaching continues regardless of my academic status!