T-Day!

We had a great Thanksgiving, if it was a little unplanned.  We had originally planned to go to my parents for Thanksgiving, however, Chloe got sick Tuesday night.  I stayed home with her on Wednesday and she only got worse that night.  So I had a heart to heart with my Sister and we all kind of decided that it would be best if we did not go down and expose everyone to Chloe's cold.

Only problem with having a sick kid, is she gave me her damned sickness.  So I have been wandering around in a cold induced haze.

Cora had gotten a turkey from her work on Wednesday, so we set about cooking it on Thursday morning.  I think it turned out lovely, but she is ever critical of her own cooking.  I think it was great!  We had all the trimmings  and it was great!!

We had planned to have another dinner with my in-laws on Saturday.  THAT went as planned.  Chloe got to have fun with her cousin.  I got to lounge some more.  Everyone was happy.

It has been great having Cora home these past few days, but the weekend is going too fast.  I wish we could start over again.  I just like spending time with my family.  I remember as a kid, I looked for something around the bend, but now I know that we ought to appreciate what we have right now for what it is and what it imparts upon us as a person.  No use wishing for tomorrow, it comes too fast, no matter what.

Given that I have been sick, I have not had much time with my camera.  I have made a few shots worth noting.  I will post them here.

As for my cold or whatever horrible virus it is, it is the kind of thing that puts an itch in the back of your throat that you can't reach with anything.  Unless you cough.  Coughing is a great defense, but it doesn't work on this thing.  I have been sipping whiskey to keep the itch at bay.  If you do cough, it goes away for five minutes, then comes back.

The first is a headless me.  I saw that someone had done something similar on a photo site i visit, and I decided to try it.  I think it worked.

 Chloe and her cousin Leah both seem to like Doc Mcstuffins...well, they are young.

 The rest are shots with my Holga plastic lens.   Cheap lens but a worth some fiddling around.

 I think they got the feeling and mood across!

I really need to get out more.  I really hope you all had a greagivingt

A Long Silence

 A long silence is difficult to break.   How best to break it?  Momentous news?  A quiet admission of the silence?  Or just an admission that life got busy and in the way?  I suppose it is really just the last one for me. Life totally got in the way of me posting.  I have been a busy little beaver.  I've taken a few photos, I've taught a few classes.  I have lived.

 Here are a few photos from the past few weeks.

 Not many.  But what I did take was nice.

 We also replaced the carpet in the house.

 The old stuff was a Berber.  We hated it.  It was a very light color that showed every little stain and when you shampooed the carpet the stains came back.  It was thin and made us unhappy.  Now we have a heavenly cloud upon which we step.

I sit here on the day before Thanksgiving.  Chloe just went down for nap.  She's caught a cold and is coughing from time to time.  I have a warm Jack Russell Terrier on my lap.  I am watching the documentary that was made about Felix Baumgardner's Space Dive.  I am sipping porter from a glass.  The dark chocolate beer helping the sinus headache I have fade, or maybe it's the Sudafed or the cold medicine I took...either way, I am beginning to feel better.

I took today off to do some shopping and take care of Chloe.  I did the shopping, probably got more than necessary...it will all be eaten eventually, so I am not too worried.

My daughter, of late, has begun to talk at phenomenal rates.  She is a chatterbox.  I love her and I think the chattering in the car is a huge improvement to crying when she wanted something.  She says the damnedest things.  She is obsessed about doctors and mitts.  Mitts are the gloves they use.  She loves to watch the doctor shows we let her.  For example, nearly every morning, A Baby Story comes on and she wants to watch it.  After awhile, all i want to do is watch the news, no matter how annoying the new team might be, they still impart a little information that might be useful during the day, but the choice often becomes over whether that information is more or less useful than having a happy girl.  I don't get to watch the news much any more.

Our carpet is so nice.  It is something that SHOULD have been here all along.  We are both daily conscious of the feel of it under our feet.  We had to pack up half of the house to get ready for installing it.  We used to never sit or lay on the carpet.  It just wasn't comfortable.  Now we hardly ever hesitate to sit or lay on it.

We are going to my parent's for Thanksgiving.  I am looking forward to eating a lot!  Well, I am feeling a little better, I will go do some dishes while listening to Chloe cough from her bed.  Poor thing.  

Halloween Fun and Fall Photos

Chloe enjoyed Halloween, and somehow we managed to avoid that little sugar high she had last year.

Here are a few panoramic pictures I took the other day.

I wish I could get someone to pay me for this stuff...alas, I end up doing it for fun.

Should be Sleeping.

It's been awhile since I blogged with regularity.  I assume no one has missed me too much.  I further assume it is my lovely daughter that people have been missing if there is anything to be missed.

I have been keeping busy this year.  I think there is a shortage of substitutes this year.  I don't have a problem with that.  I just wish I was part of the shortage.  I enjoyed having my own class.  Of course, there are advantages to being a substitute:  new batch of kids each day, different ages, if I don't like one batch, I need never go back.  You name it, there are definite advantages.

As for photography, I seem to have hit a wall.  I am not very ambitious about finding new shots.  Yes, I keep my camera with me a lot, but I don't usually take it out of the bag.  I think I need to just jump out of the truck and take a few pictures.  Just do it.  You know, go for a hike, find an abandoned house, take pictures. Find a quiet place and go for a hike.  These things usually bring out my better photos.  We have been busy lately.  We got our tax refund.

We have been looking at carpet, since our house truly needs some new rugs.  The old one is a joke and never comes clean.  So we took a few weekends and looked into new carpet.  We made the decision and will be getting that soon.  In the meantime, we need to do some serious cleaning and cleansing.  We need to take down the fish tank.  We don't watch it like we used to.

There are two clown fish in there, but we don't enjoy it like we used to.  I also know there is a clam that is several years old in there.  He came in with some live rock or perhaps with a fish.  He landed on a piece of lava rock i bought for my our snake years back.  It had never known salt water.  Now there is a bivalve on it that is roughly an inch long.  There are probably other cool things in there, but we don't sit down and look any more.  We used to have a small population of brittle starfish, but they either ate themselves out of house and home or were in turn eaten themselves.  The fact remains, we need to take it down.  I will probably donate the live rock to the local pet store, even though they charge an arm and a leg for new stuff, I really hate to take organisms and dry them out and kill them just because i don't want them anymore.  I'm pretty sure my mother-in-law will take the clowns.

Why am I up at almost 2 am?  Well, I took a Sudafed.  it woke me up at about midnight.  I am still not tired enough to sleep.  Maybe I should watch a movie or read a book...probably a better chance of sleep there.  I'll leave you with a few photos I have not shared here.

 A few pictures of apricot trees as they turned yellow for Fall.

 Chloe shortly after her birthday.

 Chloe at the Fair.

At The Pumpkin Patch!

 We decided to hit a local pumpkin patch today.  It was lots of fun!

 There was a corn maze...or should I say Maize?

 I played hide-and-seek with Chloe...she found me.

 We had hot apple cider, popcorn and we picked out some different gourds, pumpkins, and apples.  We took a hay ride and basically had a great amount of fun!  The fun, by the way, is in Naches, Washington!!  Stop by if you get the chance!

Saturday, Nephew's Birthday.

 We went to my latest nephew's second birthday party today.  I took my camera.  Cora borrowed it for a few shots.  One of which, I was in!

I took pictures of my oldest niece.  Tell me she isn't beautiful.  She's gorgeous and she is smart.

 I took a decent shot of my mom and I hope she changes her Facebook profile photo to this one instead of the one she has now!

 Chloe decided her cousin needed a book and had people read it to her several times.  By the end she was reading to others...word for word.

Would have been a lovely drive if it hadn't been destroyed by the screaming, crying, and whining from the back seat!!

Weekend Fun and Cleaning

 I want it noted that I do not actually condone cleaning, but I recognize it is a necessity.  We spent Saturday and cleaned out our junk room.  You know, that room that seems to collect EVERYTHING!  It used to be our "craft room," however, with a child we find ourselves doing far fewer crafts.  Chloe lent a hand with the vacuuming!

Tonight, just after nap, we did a little photo shoot.  Then, since the weather was so nice we decided to go for a little walk.

 Oh, and although there were several "nice" photos, this next one really makes me smile.

 Halloween is coming!!!