My Bit of Earth

Five Senses, Right Now

A few sensorial experiences of note this week....

Taste, Smell, Touch, Sight.  

I bought a handful of these zingy little kumquats as a treat last weekend, and have been pulling them from their tiny bowl on my windowsill and nibbling at them all week.  Their plump, smooth skins, and tart, puckery interior would bring me out of even the deepest Winter funk.  (If we were having Winter this year, that is.  Because apparently we've just skipped ahead to Spring.)

Sight, Hearing, Touch.  

Sweet Husband bought an India Stone yesterday to sharpen our knives with.  They were getting terribly dull--particularly a problem when you're trying to cut every meal into toddler sized pieces.  

Last night he stood in the kitchen and carefully scraped each blade along the stone until they were all nice and sharp again.  The rhythm of it--schhwoop...schhwoop...schhwoop--was soothing, and I love watching his hands as he works with them.  (Loved having sharp knives to cook dinner with tonight too!)

Sight, Touch, Hearing.

I found a whole cabinet full of bargain knitting needles at the flea market this weekend.  While bamboo needles are undoubtedly easier to manage, I like the colors of the anodized kind.  And although I know it disturbs some, I find the more pronounced "click, click, click" they make very satisfying.

(Just to let you all know, I am tickled to be guest blogging on the Rhythm of the Home blog this month.  The plan is to leave a note here whenever I post there, and my first post is up today.  If you're so inclined, please pop on over and say hello!)

Brothers and Sisters

Another photo session for my friend Moxie and her family.

I must admit, I feel quite a kinship with her these days.  In addition to becoming mamas within a month of each other, her family is now blended in many of the ways mine was growing up (step-parents, siblings with significant age differences) so it's interesting for me to compare and contrast.  (And hope that I don't bore her or seem to butt-in too often in doing so!)

As I was editing these pictures though, it really hit me extra hard that--in my experience with step-mothers (and I've had a few!)--she's definitely one of the good ones.  

Growing up, my mom would get irritated at anyone who asked my brother and I, "So, you're only half-siblings, right?"  "We don't do halves in this family," was her sharp retort.  And it was a self-fulfilling statement.

I think the same could be said of these three.  There might be some technical distinctions.  And I'm certainly not detracting a single thing from the mother of the older two...but these guys look like brothers and sisters--and, indeed, a family--to me.

(Side note:  This was my first photo session with both the new camera and my new straight fifty lens.  I think you can tell I'm still feeling the lens out a little in a few shots--the blur is so awesome that I can't always restrain it--but overall I'm in love.)

In Pretty Contemplation

Tonight I am contemplating a very serious question that will determine our Christmas happiness for many years to come:  What does Santa eat?  

Snickerdoodles?  Orange short breads?  Classic chocolate chip cookies?  

Orange short breads are the winner by a mile around here, but choosing a cookie that is not easily obtainable in a store seems like asking for a midnight Christmas Eve baking session sometime in my future.  Chocolate chip cookies come in bags, but they're not nearly as exciting....

And then, does Santa like milk?  Or beer?  Or eggnog?  Like many a man I know, I tend to think Santa may prefer a beer (particularly if he has to put the finishing touches on any toy assembly after slipping down the chimney), but I wouldn't want Santa to get a DUI....

We're starting traditions--this is serious business, folks!

While I consider these weighty matters, please enjoy some "just for pretty" shots from the new camera that I took this weekend.

Documenting Beautiful

I've been taking a lot of pictures this month.  (Stick by stick, I tell you, stick by stick.)  Every time I sit down to edit them though, I have this moment of doubt.

"Ugh. These are crap!"  I exclaim to Sweet Husband.  My forehead wrinkles up as I stare at my computer screen and think about how embarrassed I'm going to be when I have to refund their money and send people to "a real photographer".

More than once Sweet Husband has asked, "Do you really like doing this?"  

"Well...."  I always trail off, becoming too engrossed in editing to finish the thought.

But the truth is, I love it.  Sure, there are parts that are tedious.  Sure, that first few minutes of liberally using my delete button is scary.

But getting the chance to document how beautiful I think people are...is so great.

Like, do you ever catch yourself walking down the street and noticing something pretty about a stranger?  "Wow--I wonder if anyone has ever told him he has incredible eyes?"  "I hope she knows that she has gorgeous skin."  I really want to stop people sometimes and tell them.  

I almost never do, as it feels vaguely creepy.  Which is, I think, why I get such a kick out of photographing people--because the whole point of it is to capture the things that make people beautiful and show them to the rest of the world.

And then you get to show the beautiful relationships too.  The couple in the first shots above (I'm picking on them because they're good friends and they already know I'm creepy--lol), they have such a sweet marriage.  Like, one that's just fun to bask in the glow of.  And I think I might have gotten that on "film" a little.

It's all so very ordinary, but it feeds my soul a bit to document it, get it down on paper in a way that their descendants will look back at and think, "Wow--my parents were madly in love," or "Gosh, my grandma had a pretty smile," or "My dad was always so good for a laugh, wasn't he?".

A Month of Habiting

I've so enjoyed my little daily photo project this month.  I don't know if I could keep it up year 'round, but every so often it is nice to stop and notice things the way a camera helps you do.  Particularly with the changes and conflict and just downright fullness we've had this month, I've looked forward to that one quiet moment each day.

And looking back at all the pictures together....

....I love how it looks a little like a quilt.

Big thanks to the ladies at habit, both for planting the idea in my head and for opening up their blog for the month!

Habiting :: Week 4

(From my November "habit" photo project....the full set, the full pool of everyone's photos, and the blog here.)

November 26th:  You know those days when you discover something just a little bit life changing?

Breaking News: Kids Can Be Sorta Great

I got together with a co-worker last week to take some pictures of her son for holiday gifting.

I worked with kids a lot during high school and college--my mom worked in a school district, so it was always an easy place for me to get a part-time job--but less so since I moved away for law school.  Hanging out with this guy for a couple hours made me realize how much I miss it. 

Particularly kids of that six or seven to ten or twelve range.  You know--old enough to have a conversation, but still young enough to be really unselfconsciously silly.

Example:  This guy is the first photography "client" I've had ask to take my picture back.  And he was going to use his leap-frog-thingy-ma-jiggy to photoshop me into a princess costume.  How could I say no to that?

Habiting :: Week 3

(From my November "habit" photo project....the full set, the full pool of everyone's photos.  Also, I was tickled to make the blog twice this week--here and here.)

November 18th:  I've driven this commute every day for almost six years, but sometimes I still look up and think, "I can't possibly have seen this stretch of the road before."

Habiting :: Week 2

(From my November "habit" photo project....the full set, the full pool of everyone's photos.)

November 8th:  The hat I can explain.  But I'm still not sure why they were grinding coffee on the kitchen floor.  

Butterflies?

Babies, Three Specimens

Specimen A:  The furry baby.  Can be identified by soft ears and damp nose.  Inspires longings for walks outside on crisp Fall days, and that heavy, warm weight at the foot of your bed on chilly mornings.

Specimen B:  The grown-up baby.  Can be identified by pretty smile and independent spark in eyes.  Inspires longings to go home and tie a brick to my child's head.  Also, makes me all wistful...it's going to go so fast, isn't it?

Specimen C:  The baby, um...baby.  Can be identified by extreme tininess and sweet, gummy smile.  Inspires longings to cuddle, kiss on forehead, and sniff hair as much as possible without her relatives thinking I'm a crazy woman.  You would've too!

Habiting :: Week 1

(I'm loving this self-assigned habit-inspired project [see explanation], so I've decided I'm going to sneak in a few from my flickr set on the weekends this month.)

November 2nd:  He brought home a loaf of the bread with whole garlic cloves baked into it. I changed out of my wet things and ate dinner in my pajamas.

Get High With Me (High On the Love)

I think everyone has this happen to a certain extent, but I go through a lot of my life feeling like a sponge.  Put me in a room with negative people and I suck up the doom and gloom, but let me hang out with happy people for a few hours and I get high.

Which is why, I think, I get such a kick out of engagement pictures.  I just absorb all that giddy love right up.

I was fortunate to get to take two sets of engagement pictures last week.  The female halves of each couple are both very old friends of mine, and even more so of each other.  The fellas I don't know as well, but I'm willing to whole-heartedly accept the premise that they must be pretty awesome to have won their respective ladies.

Sigh....feels good to be high on love, doesn't it?

P.S.  While we're speaking of photos, habit--one of my favorite "slice of life" photo blogs--has opened up their flickr pool this month to outside submissions.  (They're picking a few submissions each day for the blog, but so far I haven't been able to resist at least skimming the entire pool.)  On a whim last night--and as a half-assed way of participating in NaBloPoMo--I've decided to make a daily photo project out my submissions.  I may post them here, I may not.  But if you're interested, my photos and words will most certainly be here.

Driving in Flat Places

I found the flat part of Kansas.

Really, I wasn't sure where it was before.  I mean, we don't have mountains anywhere of course, but most of the North and Eastern parts of the state are more rolling hills.  Gorgeous rolling hills, that I'm actually quite fond of.  It's like the ocean, but with grass...the biggest sky you'll ever see...it's home.

Not so the Southwest corner of the state, where I traveled for work this week.  It is truly the flat part of Kansas.  The phrase "flatter than a pancake" actually ran through my head several times.

I can't pretend to have enjoyed the landscape, but I can say that the people there are awfully nice.  I can also verify that if you're ever in Greensburg, Kansas, the Eco-Silo is the place to stay and The Green Bean is a cute coffee shop to stop by.  Additionally, Twist is the best yarn shop in Wichita, but the Heritage Hut has a sweetheart of an Irish Wolfhound named Maggie for a shop dog.  Definitely worth the visit to both places.

Lastly, babies look different when you get back from being away, even if you've only been gone for three days.  Thankfully, mine didn't mind when his silly mama blubbered and hugged him for five whole minutes....

Penance for July

We stepped off the plane from California last week to the most pleasant surprise.  Seventy degrees, cornflower blue sky, and the wild sunflowers blooming away....I'm not officially calling it yet, but I think it might be getting close to Fall.

In my opinion, Kansas sunflowers are a make-up kiss for the last two weeks of July.  It's like, the very ground underneath our feet knows that we're at the end of our ropes with the million degree heat and mosquitoes.  Just as we're all trying to figure out how to escape, up sprout the sunflowers...in the ditches, along the roads, in back yards and front yards...all whispering, "C'mon, this isn't so bad, now is it?"

This particular field isn't wild, but rather is planted by a farmer and his wife.  (And this year it had to be planted three times, bless them!)

It's one of my favorite late Summer/early Fall places to go visit.  Even in a "bad year", like this one, they just seem to go on forever and ever.  And each flower had no fewer than four or five bees on it, all dying of happiness.

With the help of our Nice Friends, we got a few obligatory family pictures knocked out too.  The lovely Ms. Cara Combs took all the pictures above that I am in.  And her nice husband, Nick, ever-so-cheerfully took a hand-off of the bebe, so that we could get a few shots of Sweet Husband and I by ourselves.

The Six Month Photo Shoot

Well-child visit at the doctor=time for a photo shoot.  

We did an over/under on his weight this time.  (We always bet on what his official weight will be before we go.)  Sweet Husband took under 20 pounds, I took over.  I lost, but only by the bare fewest of ounces.  ("He has to be at least 20 pounds--from the way my arms feel after lugging him around all day, there's no way it could be less!") 

But the Kiddo's added movement--he's about two seconds away from learning how to crawl--seems to be slimming his figure by comparison to others his age.  While last time we were mostly in the 90's, this visit he was just a little above the 80th percentile right across the board.  ("Very proportionate!"  his doctor cooed at him.)

And the balloons?  Were not only a lovely photo prop, but days of bargain entertainment!

Happy Friday Everyone!

My Guys At Rest, Redux

(Moe is irreplaceable, of course...but he has lost his favorite lap space.  Don't feel too bad for him though.  He was cuddling with the other parent when this picture was taken!)

Gratuitous Fall

I love the day when I finally drive down our street and all the trees are ablaze with color.  I look forward to it all of October.  "Will this be the day?"  And the evening that I step into the backyard and realize that our trees have finally gone all golden--bliss.  This year we're a little late, I think, but at last there's more red and orange and yellow than green.  And all that color against a bright blue, November sky...I don't think a better color scheme has ever been designed, unless it's all that color against a grey sky, which is just as good!

And then, of course, there's the obligatory last trip to the Farmer's Market to get a handful of freshly roasted chestnuts from "Chestnut Charlie" and bid farewell to all our favorite farmers until Spring.  This year I had to grab a couple of unshelled chestnuts too.  They're prickly to handle, but they make such interesting knick-knacks to display.

Of course, there are leaves to be raked, and last garden bits to be finished up too.  The line of demarcation between our front yard (full of leaves) and our spotless neighbor's is a little shameful right now, but my lazy-bone is beating my sense-of-civic-duty-bone.  And the leaves make a pretty carpet anyway, right?  

And the cooler weather means my friends, the squirrels, are back out in full force.  Via my super spy photography techniques--and the fact that the terrier was sleeping--I was able to capture this guy snacking on our front porch pumpkin.

A Country Wedding

Another wedding photo gig--my third, if we're keeping track.  

Lessons learned?  Cowboy hats make shadowy faces if you aren't paying attention, but they add such a nice old-fashioned-y feel to things.  It makes me want to edit everything possible into black and white. 

 

Pretty, yes?

Of course, big sweeping expanses of just-almost-Fall pasture and lovely old rusty barns aren't so hard on the eyes either.

 

A big congrats and much good wishes to this super sweet couple!