Blink and You'll Miss It

Somehow, without my realizing it, this:

became this:

Pictures For My Mom

are on my photography blog...I just spent a half hour loading them and realized that I put them on a blog I was fiddling around with to showcase my photography...and I don't have time to switch them to this blog, so:

SEE THEM HERE!

My favorite picture (right now)

So so pretty to me. I have this as my desktop background and looking at it is a refreshing pause in a busy, busy day.

Busy Busy Busy!

Yes, I know it's blurry. I picked it on purpose. My daughter is holding the sign on the right (that's for you, Mom).

We are in the final weeks of our Schoolhouse Rock Live production. My two oldest and I have been involved with this YouThespian group through our local Albany Civic Theater since last November. We open just before my 40th birthday. Many things in my life have been put on hold out of necessity, including the blog posts I'd planned as I counted down my 40/40 list.

Never fear! I am still crossing things off. I had my first pedicure last Saturday and enjoyed hanging out with some of my girlfriends. I hope to tackle a few more this weekend. I will not be finishing the entire list, but I am pleased with the results so far.

The rain is letting up and the dogwoods are blooming. Pink flowering dogwood might just be my favorite flowring tree. I'm trying to participate in Ali's "A Week in the Life"--I took pictures at rehearsal last night and today I took some pictures of the dogwood in my neighborhood. I also realized that I've lost the eyecup on my camera. Let me know if you see it.

I'll leave you with this beauty:

And this one (in case you want to make it your desktop background):

30 Strangers Project--I LOVE THIS IDEA!

Justin Hackworth, photographer in Utah, is taking applications for his 30 Strangers Project. I love this idea, and want to try to recreate it.

Anyone live nearby and want pictures of their Mother/Daughter combinations? Let me know!

How neat is this? I want to play!

I saw this while blog hopping this morning. I want to play along!

One Hundred Photos

Anyone else?

Albany Visitor's Association Photography Contest

These would have been my entries in the Albany Visitor's Association Photography Contest if I had managed my time better...

Let me know if you want to buy any prints...just leave me a comment!

Photo Cards

I did something fun for myself and for the Bazaar. I took some set of my pictures to a local printer and had cards made. I boxed them all up this morning in clear boxes and they look great! It's hard not to feel a small thrill of pride in myself. If they don't sell, I know my Mom will like them!

Been Shooting (and Christmas Bazaar)

Pictures that is! I have done 5 senior picture photoshoots so far this year, with 3 of them last week! You can see them at My Photostream on Flickr. All but one or two shots are SOOC or "straight out of camera," meaning no post-processing involved. I have one more shoot to do before time runs out for these seniors, but it's been rainy and she's been sick.

In crafty news, I'm in charge of our local school bazaar this year. I've been a vendor the last four years, so it's interesting being on the other side of things. I'll have some pictures later of what I'm making....it's fun! Hopefully I'll inspire some of your Christmas crafts! My main goal is to make all of my stuff without buying anything! (okay, I'll confess, I bought some clear boxes for my Krafty Card sets...but so far, that's all!) I used the green, orange, and bright blue cards to make sets of six. Love those Tim Holtz Stamps!

My head is also full of ideas for blog posts--look for more as the holidays get closer!

Free Photoshop Class!

I am s0 taking this class! I've done a class with Jessica Sprague before and it was pretty amazing! She makes sure you have EVERYTHING possible to be successful in the class. I can happily encourage everyone to sign up for it. Make sure you are registered with her site first--after that all you have to do is sign up between June 22 and June 28. It'll be fun! I'll "see" you there!

#24 is still going strong. Well, I will admit that I've grabbed a graham cracker here or a granola bar there, so it's not perfect. But I have felt a big difference in myself this week. I'll blog about what I learned later. It's been interesting, and definitely worth it!

My new favorite picture

Yesterday I did a photoshoot with my daughter and her coterie. One of the key members of this group is moving next week, and I wanted them all to have something to commemorate their 3 year plus friendship. I took over 500 pictures and had a blast. This is one of my favorites. (it's straight-out-of-camera, no post-processing, for those of you interested in such things) You can see the rest in my flickr account (link on the sidebar). Enjoy!

As Promised: Fall in Oregon

Fall in Oregon is a beautiful thing.

The sun is shining and the sky is a bright blue. The air is cold and crisp. It doesn’t look cold, but you can feel the shift in temperature as soon as you step outside. You can smell the difference; you can smell the edge of the chill.

You can feel it all the way to your toes when you inhale deeply.

It’s a delicious shiver.

Fall is a respite from the rains of spring which sometimes linger into summer. It’s a chance to see the sky before the rains of winter.

We are lucky to see evidence of earth and growing and harvest all around us. The richness is a part of the earthy smell in the air—the good kind of earthy. The kind that makes you wish you had planted a garden this year after all, so you can taste the corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, and other squashes.

I love the colors of fall.

I love the changing of the leaves—the bright pinks of the sugar maples, the salmons and scarlets of the Japanese maples, the brown of the oaks and the gold of the ginkgos. I love the crunch of the leaves. I relish the orange of the trees against the blue of the sky. The colors sing to me.
I love the catalogs with the new colorways announcing the shift from the bright and shiny to the deeper colors and textures of the shorter and colder days.

I love the names of the colors: pumpkin, loden, terracotta, aubergine, plum, cranberry, and moss; love the deep richness of the colors themselves.

We (my children and I) plan costumes and Halloween. We plan that the children will need to layer under their costumes to keep warm. We plan for wet, we plan for mud, and we plan for umbrellas and raincoats. I buy the candy we like to eat because the past five years have taught us that few trick-or-treaters will brave the dark of our street to get the treats at the end. We carve our own pumpkins and put them out as sentinels to light the way.

I don’t mind the mucky visits to the pumpkin patches with the school field trips. I know now to bring my own plastic bag to sit on so the wet haystack doesn’t seep through my coat and pants. I know to wear boots and bring an extra pair of shoes for my child. I bring another plastic bag for the mud-covered boots. There’s no way we are getting out of that pumpkin patch with just a pumpkin or two. The muck is coming with us.

At least there will be apple cider at the end. It has its own glories.

Fall makes me want to light candles, to wrap up in sweaters, to read books warm and cozy in my home. I switch from the lighter fragrances of summer to the deeper scents of fall. I trade my pink grapefruit and lemon verbena for cinnamon cranberry and orange evergreen.

It’s time to bake pies and bread, to fill the house with the smells of yeast and apple and comfort.

It’s time to hunker down and nest, snug for the season.

It’s fall in Oregon.

The Wedding was a Wonderful Thing!

I felt honored to be a part of it. More Later!

Bike Update

After the bike disappeared, I made sure to tell my neighbors--I mean, we are all a little lax about what we leave out because of our relative isolation. One neighbor (who has a son J's age) offered her the bike his ex-wife left behind. It's nicer than the one that was stolen, and he didn't need it at all. It worked out for the best. It's now kept inside the garage!

I'm shooting my first wedding today, so send me all your good vibes!

Go-See! Home Decor Canvas Project

Heather Nichols, of the PaperTrey Ink Design Team (among other talents) has the sweetest project on her blog right now! I want to rush out to buy a canvas and make one myself! Go check it out--you'll want to make one too!

Canvas Home Decor Wall Art

Go spend some time looking around her blog---I've long been impressed by her creativity and her work.

Enjoy!

Teddy Roosevelt and Yellowstone

picture is blurry--it was basically dark when I took it

I was corrected in yesterday's post about Roosevelt and Yellowstone. Yellowstone National Park was created by an Act of Congress in 1872. Roosevelt dedicated the North entrance in 1903 (now knows as the "Roosevelt Arch"); he also laid the cornerstone of the Arch. Here's a link for you: LINK. This tells a little bit more about President Roosevelt's involvement with the park.

So there you go.

Yellowstone Travertine

One of my favorite things about Yellowstone Park was the section in the north of the park, near Mammoth Hot Springs where these wonderful stair-steppy travertines formed. Kind of like the stalagmites in caves, but on the outside of things. The water and the minerals just kind of trickle out and down. I loved that no human controls the making of these; nature just does what she wants, where she wants.

I was often struck by the forethought of President Teddy Roosevelt and grateful for his actions in making this our first National Park. I was also grateful for all of the men and women who worked in the past to save it--like when the Army National Guard lived on the park to protect the herd animals from poaching, or the work of naturalists and ecologists to bring back the gray wolves, or the heroic efforts of all of those involved in fighting the big fires twenty years ago. You can help but feel small when surrounded by all of that wonderful wildness. I mean feel small in a good way.

Let's just say that if Nature is your religion, there's not many better places to worship than Yellowstone Park.

Enjoy!

One thing for sale...

In my Etsy Shop! (I've only had the shop for well over a year now...). It's not much, but it's a start! I hope to add more things over the next few weeks.

That's all for now!

File this under Surprising Animal Pictures

Or maybe, file under "Inappropriate Animal Pictures." We caught this picture on our first trip through Yellowstone. This big guy was blocking traffic. I was thrilled that he stopped when we passed by him, (he was on the left/driver's side of our car and I was in the passenger side). Then we smelled why he was stopped. Um, Yeah, that was part of the nitty gritty real Yellowstone experience.

Sort of reminds me of some slides my Dad took of the Ostriches during one of my childhood visits to the Wilhelma Zoo in Germany. (I didn't get it until later). Let's just say that the Ostriches were getting very friendly with each other. I'm just carrying on the proud (?) Reese tradition of Inappropriate Animal Pictures. Just doin' my part to keep it real, people.

And for what it's worth, I LOVED the Wilhelma Zoo. I was 5 when we first started going there. To me, it was a magical place. I'd love to go there again.

some promised pictures!

Me and SOY Elizabeth Kartchner. I actually recognized her husband first (he said it was a first). She was very gracious. It was very early (we woke up at 6am) so I'm not wearing any makeup. That's all my real skin. I think it looks pretty good for it's age!

Sunrise through a valley in the Wasatch Mountains. This is where the balloon lift for the Provo Freedom Festival took place.

I have more pictures of the balloons in my flickr account. You can see more there, as well as a whole lot of Yellowstone pictures.

My house is a jumble of stuff--my parents are moving and have given us a TON of things to sort through--so my blogging time will be short (but hopefully sweet!). I have more to share about Yellowstone (truly a wonderful, almost life-changing {yes I know that's corny} experience), more papercrafting projects to share, and more thoughts on life!

Enjoy these small tidbits for now.