Sea + Prairie

week 5 of 52

(week 2)

I've been clicking along with my 52 of You project.

This is week 5 and our assignment is to get out in the dark, to play with light sources like christmas lights and glow sticks, etc.  Its a tough one...a real challenge.  By the time I get everyone into bed at night and start to think about my own time, I just want to put on my flannel pj's and climb into bed with my stack of books.

I haven't really wanted to get bundled up and head outside to set up shots and explore light sources...at all.

(week 1)

(week 3)

(week 4)

So far, its been fun...and I have tried not to take myself too seriously.  I had a lot of fun with week 4, with the theme of whimsy.  

However, this week's "dark" challenge has me a bit stumped.  I don't want to spend any more time "in the dark" than I need to.  As a kid I would run and jump into bed as far back as I could just in case there might be anything under my bed that might be able to reach out and grab me.  Somehow, once I was in bed I felt safe and secure.

Feeling a bit like that these days, like I just want to stay under the covers a bit longer where it is warm and safe and nothing can get me.

Maybe I'll just stay another week on whimsy and skip the darkness challenge all together...or not.

Here's to getting creative in the dark, and living in the light friends!!!

making it a habit

Hello friends...

this month I have been invited to participate over at habit once again.  I continue to be so thrilled (and a bit shocked) that I am asked to contribute.

I begun to rely so much on my ipone for photos.  Its handy and convenient, but I do miss my Nikon.  In the updated guidelines sent, participants are strongly enouraged to steer clear of ig photos and such.  So this should be a great exercise in getting back to taking photos with my regular camera.

Here are a few out-takes from yesterday...a day filled with running errands, pulling weeds and laundry.  

Happy to have you visiting here today!  

now you

::tired mama eyes from being up one too many times last night::

I started a new project today.  I apologize now for the many self portraits that will be gracing this space, but I signed up for Kristen and Meredith's class called Now You.

Today our assignment was to focus on the feature about ourselves we like the most. I meant to get a better shot of my curls. But as I poured through the 21 shots, yes 21 shots...of myself...I decided that its not my curls I like the most about myself, but my strength.  Is strength a trait you can capture in a photo?

Either way, I liked this one the best. It was the only one where I didn't look pissed off or completely exhausted. I mean there is a lot to be pissed off about, but the thing I love most about myself is my  confidence in my own strength to pull us through.

For the first time in my life living my life on my own terms. There is pain, and anger, but there are equal amounts of strength and joy to be seen in my life as well. Oh friends, so...much...joy...in being my whole self.

In Black and White

More and more these days I find myself converting my photos to black and white.  I boost up the contrast and warm it up a bit.

Quite possibly a need for things go be more clear, more one way or the other in my own life.  I know...I'm in my head quite a bit these days.  But one thing about blogging for so many years now.  I know this is what January brings for me.  And I'm good with that.

At the same time I am wanting to get back to documenting our everyday life.  I so want to remember how my boys sat while they did their homework.  How the light is beginning to peak through the blinds a bit earlier everyday.  Garden planning.  Tea time.

Even my messy corner looks almost poetic in black and white, the January calendar not filled in, remaining open for what will come next month.

Speaking of what's to come...

We're excited about a three day weekend.  The boys are already making lists of things they want to do.

Among them...

:: listen to MLK's "I Have A Dream" speach.

:: Start our Valentines

:: Go swimming at the rec center

:: Make obstacle courses for the guinnea pigs

:: Have another dart gun war in the park

:: Learn to draw R2-D2

Here's to three day weekends and to documenting the everyday!

Happy Friday friends!

Reflections

This is a shot of the mirror in my Papaw's bedroom.  While visiting in Texas this past week I was lucky, oh so lucky, to have gotten to visit with him twice.  Its always difficult to talk while you are trying to keep three rowdy little boys busy and relatively quiet...not an easy task my friends.

But he and my Grammer are pretty special people to me.

I can't remember why I went back to this room now.  But I found it interesting the three photos that he had stuck in the top of his mirror.  I think they pretty much some up my vision of him.

::The first one is of an airplane.  He was a pilot for many years.  When he started the tractor, with us aboard, he would make us say "contact" before he would turn the tractor key...like we were starting a plane.

::The second is of he and a cow when he was a little boy.  He raised cows for many years too.  Some of my fondest memories of their house was visiting the cows. 

::And finally, the last photo is a snapshot of my grandfather's grandparents.

I've been reflecting a lot on this past year too and working on a bit of a month by month recap with a few more photos.

Maybe I'll get it finished tomorrow.  But for now I'm thinking about what three photos will be on my mirror 50 years from now.

What are you reflecting on today?

First Frost

Photographing Fall

It is day 3 of Tracey Clark's Picturing Fall class.  And I am already enjoying it so very much.  We moved around a lot when I was a kid and I have to say, some of those very same feelings of being unsure, questioning my abilities, all came back.

But as soon as I submitted my first photo, all of the anxieties washed away with all of the rain falling outside my window. 

I am doing this for myself.  I am on my OWN journey.  Here to learn the lessons that fold out before me and only me.

Feel free to follow along if you wish.  I'll be posting all of the daily shots here.

I've been reading through Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace and Learning the Hard Way by Shauna Niequist.  I read her first book Cold Tangerines on the way to Nicaragua and loved it, so I knew this one would hit me in the gut as well.

I am only half-way through it and it has not disappointed.

Here's a few quotes for you from Bittersweet.

"she said it's not hard to decide what you want your life to be about.  What's hard, she said, is figuring out what you're willing to dive up in order to do the things you really care about."

"I stop dreaming sometimes, because I'm afraid of what it would take to change my life.  I stop dreaming because I'm afraid of the chaos that a dream might bring, afraid of what a new dream will require of me.  I practice being fine, and tell myself that things are all right, just as they are.  They ARE all right, of course."

"Sometimes the most spiritual things we do are the most physical, the most tactile."

Happy Sunday!