31 days of picture takin'

So, being that I am in to photography, people will occasionally ask if I've ever done one of those 365 projects.  That's where you take a picture every day for a year.  365 pictures.  And post them. 
I love photography.  But....come on.  That's a lot of picture takin'. 
However, I did think, I could probably do a 31 day project.  So, for the month of May, I am going to take at least one picture each day.  So as not to inundated you with 31 consecutive posts, I thought I'd share them a week at a time. 

Today is May 3.  So here are my first 3 days of pictures in my 31 day project.

Every spring, I get ferns to hang under the overhang of the house that is on the deck.  And every spring, we have a mommy bird who makes a nest and lays eggs in the fern.  The babies have now hatched.  Even though my second born thinks they are adorable, I think they look rather angry.  Still, it's fun to see them grow.


 



The irises in our yard are just beginning to bloom. 





The kids getting off the bus.  Only 14 days left!!
 

Where has the time gone...

 

Look at my toothless cutie. 

 

 

This is just one more piece of evidence that my children are growing up and fast.  Once those big, grown up teeth come in...she really won't be my baby anymore.  *sniff, sniff*

Playing Catch Up

I've been MIA for a little while.  We've been a little busy here. 

We had company.




My sister, her husband and daughter.

 Easter.




I didn't get a picture of our family in Easter attire, so this will have to do for an Easter pic. 

  Sickness.

This is why I didn't get a family Easter pic.  My youngest was sick on Easter Sunday.  Don't worry though.  I am going to get that Easter dress up pic. 

  GOBS of laundry because of said company and sickness. ( I do not have a picture of my dirty laundry but you can imagine.)



A spring break beach trip.

I love this picture, taken from quite a distance with my iPhone.  There was a dolphin swimming pretty close to shore.  My oldest (in her perfect runner's stride) is leading the pack in chasing it down.

  A family reunion. 

This is my husband's side of the family.  And we were even missing quite a few people!

Now I get to breathe for a minute (in between more laundry) before more company this weekend and my oldest daughter's first play.  It's all good though.  I like being busy.  I like having a reason to clean.  When I'm cleaning just for the sake of things being clean, that's good too, I do like things to be clean, but it's also a little hollow.  I know the kids won't appreciate it and will just come home and mess everything up again with lightening flash speed. 

So, now I'm off to go put away the laundry I did last week so I can refill the basket with the laundry I'm doing today.  Fun, fun fun. 

 

Another Gadget

As I was cooking dinner again last night, another one of my favorite kitchen gadgets came to my attention.  It's the immersion blender my mom gave me for Christmas.  I started to pull out the big regular ole blender, but then spotted this new little treat and thought, oh ya! 

I used it to make a southwest sauce to go with the southwest chicken quesadillas we had for dinner.  The chicken I used was left over from the chicken fajitas we had the night before.  Yeah to me for making double use of one package of chicken.  (This is mainly because, if I cut it up right, I can feed all 3 of my girls on 1-1/2 pieces of chicken.  Don't worry, what we save in food by having girls, we make up for in clothes and shoes and accessories).  What I like about this gadget is that it is relatively small and doesn't take up much space, it's easy to clean and a bit easier to manipulate what you are trying to blend than just dumping it all in the blender and leaving your creation to the mercy of the blade at the bottom. 

Go Go Gadget...

I wouldn't say I love to cook.  I like it, but can't go as far as to say I LOVE it.  I do it.  Cook that is.  All the time.  I cook dinner 5-6 nights a week and sometimes all 7.  However, I do love a good kitchen gadget.  And I love to look around in kitchen stores.  My current favorite is Sur la Table.  That store have everything you could possibly want for your kitchen and oh so many things that you didn't know you wanted but really really do once you've seen it. 

I don't have a lot of neat kitchen gadgets myself, mostly because my kitchen is in desperate need of a demolition and so I am currently lacking space for anything but the absolute necessities. 
So when I do get a new gadget, it is seldom.  Recently, my mother in law gave me a pancake pen (which I think she got at Williams Sonoma).  Some of you may be thinking, I've had one of those for years, and you are just now getting one...and excited about it??  Yes and yes.  It's such a simple device, if you can even call it that.  It squirts out pancake batter.  That all.  It squirts it out.  But it makes pancake making so much easier, more precise if you really like round pancakes which I do, and less messy. 

Maybe I could learn to love to cook if I had all sorts of cool gadgets.  And a really awesome kitchen.  And more time.  And fewer children.  And children that liked whatever I cooked.  And more time.  And a really awesome kitchen. 

Urrgghhh!! and other sounds of frustration!

Bear with me as I try to navigate through all the info I am going through in trying to work on my blog design. You may see some weird changes come and go, reappear and then disappear again.  I don't know what I'm doing.  It may take me a while to figure it all out and settle on what I want my blog to look like. 

I Have and Idea! or Two

Have I mentioned before that I have a lot of ideas?  I do.  Sometimes I get frustrated or overwhelmed because I have what I think is a pretty good idea, but no idea of how to make it come about.  I sometimes spend what seems like endless amounts of  time "researching" some of my ideas online.  Which brings about another problem.  I feel really unproductive when all I do for a couple of hours is surf the web in search of answers to my how do I do it problem.  Maybe if I were getting paid for my time I would feel differently, but I'm not, so I don't. 

And then sometimes, by surfing the web (do people still say that?) I get more ideas.  And then there are so many things floating around in my head that nothing gets done or comes to fruition.  It's really frustrating!  Then I look around at the breakfast dishes in the sink and the laundry that I haven't even started and the fact that I am still in my p.j.'s and fuzzy slippers and it's getting on toward lunch time and I feel even worse. 

I think some of this may be a result of being an empty nester from 7:45-2:45 everyday.  I have more time on my hands now.  Time to theoretically get things done and explore my ideas.  Before, I might have had different ideas on things I wanted to do, but I would get so busy with the kid(s) at home that I never even pretended to follow through with any of them.  Plus, I would feel really guilty if all my kid did was see me sitting at the computer, for no apparent reason, not getting paid, for way too long, neglecting her and whatever else needed to be done. 

Maybe I just need to be better organized.  (another idea of mine).  Then I'll have time to take care of all my house and kid and wife duties AND complete an idea or two.  First, I need to organize all of the crazy ideas floating around in my head. 

My current main idea is to grow my blog, make it bigger, better and gain more readers.  There is SO much info out there on blogging though that it is terribly overwhelming and frustrating and a little depressing.  What I really want is for someone to just do it for me.  For free.  And then I'll take it from there.  And all the credit.  :)

And because I would rather read a blog post that has pictures, here are a few. (that have nothing to do with this post).




This is me trying to take a picture of myself with the new wireless remote I got for Christmas. 

 



The sunset from a recent trip to the beach.



An interesting bit of tree near the afore mentioned beach.