Holy Macaroni!

I check nbcnews.com every morning for my news fix, and noticed last week that they were doing viewer submitted photos for voting, the next week would be 'sunrise' photos.  Well, I figured I had the perfect photo from last year when I dragged poor Owen out for a sunrise shot of a shuttle fly-over.  So I submitted it.  Today I checked the website and holy carp, my photo was not only listed as one of the ones to vote for, but it was THE photo depicting the entire article! *faint*

So go vote already!  I think you have the whole week, but I'm not really sure.  I feel like I've won already, just by being selected, but still, shoot for the stars, dude!

http://www.today.com/travel/its-snap-stunning-sunrises-1B9232834

A few more photos from that day...I may have posted some here before but I can't remember and I'm too lazy to check right this moment...zzzz.....

ETA:  Those were from the Discover flyover and I DID post them already.  So enjoy the repeat! :)

It's been one week...

...since you looked at me... Yes, I know it's been more than one week but now you hopefully have a fun little #earworm.

I have been legitimately busy!  I swear!  I was emailed by Zach's teacher about a potential opportunity for him/other students.  The county fair is apparently having a youth cooking competition and maybe some of them would be interested?  It wouldn't be a school event, just an extra and I would be in charge of deciding whether or not to go forward.  Of COURSE Zach wanted to do it, anything to cram more stuff into MY life. One of the girls from last year's solar cooking competition (OMG that was crazy) was also mentioned as being interested and she agreed that she'd love to do it.  The catch?  I had about 1 1/2 weeks to prepare because the fair event is on Sunday the 24th.  Eeek.

So I'm still scrambling.  Zach hasn't done a lot of cooking lately and he tends to be a bit scattered, and S, his friend, hasn't done much cooking other than noodles (her words).  I've had 2 cooking days in the past week where I walk them through a meat and veg. with lots of garlic mincing along the way and it's been a big exhausting mess.  The catch to the competition, as I've been told, is that the kids in groups of 2 will have a box of a surprise beef and veg ingredients. They will then have to prepare an entree but will be able to bring 'spices' from home.  It's all up in the air, however, because I can't get the lady to call me back and I don't know if the two are actually registered or not, or if I need a waiver/liability form for S's parents to sign, what 'spices' actually means, etc.  So maybe we'll be cooking and maybe we won't.  Or they, not we.  Whatever.  At least I got dinner cooked for me last night and we made my first ever homemade chimichurri sauce.  Yummy!  No pics, though.  Too many dishes to wash for me to have the energy for the camera.

I did take pics of Zach over the weekend, though.  A few glasses of wine seems to help numb the burning in my hands and arms (woohoo!) so on Sat I indulged and set up my flash remotely so go off at an angle in the garage, hung some black muslin and made Zach grab his newest cloak.  I like what we ended up with.  The problem I had was that in backing up out of the garage to get a wider shot, I'd end up in the sun which was somehow affecting my ability to focus or skewed my light sensing or something, I'm not sure what.  So most of the shots had me too close to really get it all, but hey, it was an experiment and it was fun and that's what counts, right?

And how can I leave without posting one of my smaller spawn? ♥  He can't NOT make a face when I try to take a photo of him.  So rotten.  So lovable.

Day 5

Well, I had great plans for today. At least as far as going the distance with my camera, literally. I loaded the baby into the bike trailer, Zach got on his own bike and we headed out to the grocery store. It was a gorgeous day and we needed the fresh air and exercise. I packed my camera in a messenger bag, slung it across my back and off we went. On the way back we stopped in the park and I actually managed to get both boys looking at me and snapped a picture. But the preview image didn't load. WTF? And then I realized that there was no image count, either. Then it hit me...I had left the $@!$%^! memory card in the computer. So much for posterity.

One of my goals this year is to figure out a way to get better pictures of Owen. He's a fast little devil and always blinks or changes his position or facial expression just as the shutter is clicking. I managed to get a couple of cute ones today. They may not be portrait quality, but at least he looks happy instead of eyes half shut, drool spilling onto his shirt, nose tilted up to show a full collection of boogers, etc.

Here he is fresh from a bath, looking cute so maybe we won't send him to bed.






And would you look at that...he DOES love the baby! Awwww, sweet baby. Maybe he's just doing the good-cop, bad-cop routine with them.

My first day

I don't blog. I am entirely too much of a procrastinator (just ask my floors, as they are screaming to be swept/scrubbed/loved) to keep up with something that makes me look productive, as most bloggers are quite adept at being wordy and actually POSTING those words. Me? I think them mostly at night when I should be sleeping. No way in hell am I getting up to type then.

Anyway, thanks to VENUS, she who is apparently spawned from evil (she posted the blasted 'Thing-A-Day' link last year that got me hooked) started mumbling about this photo-a-day B.S. and basically made me feel like a loser for not having the gumption to simply take one photo every day. I put it off (imagine that!) but now I can no longer deny that the high risk of failure is taunting me mecilessly, so here we go.

January 4, 2009. Four days into the project I finally cave and decide to jump in. So here's my photo.

This chip-n-dip dish is full of ornaments that our youngest pulled off the tree during its time this season. I'm glad I put unbreakable ones near the bottom. At least most of them. I didn't put the broken ones in the bowl...I'm not a total masochist.