Okay, I kind of cheated on this one, because Shimelle suggested it in her post. However, it was not an easy picture to get! It's a picture of a match being lit. I used the timer on my camera to light it at just the right second. I like it. Definitely explosive!
Monday, August 16, 2010
Photo Challenge 4
Photo Challenge #4: Take a photo that contains explosive energy.
Okay, I kind of cheated on this one, because Shimelle suggested it in her post. However, it was not an easy picture to get! It's a picture of a match being lit. I used the timer on my camera to light it at just the right second. I like it. Definitely explosive!
Okay, I kind of cheated on this one, because Shimelle suggested it in her post. However, it was not an easy picture to get! It's a picture of a match being lit. I used the timer on my camera to light it at just the right second. I like it. Definitely explosive!
Photo Challenge 3
Take a photo through the glass.
Do you know how hard that is? Especially with a not-so-great automatic, point-and-click camera! I tried and tried, but could never actually see what was on the other side of the glass. I suppose it's not technically through the glass if I raised the glass, but I did it anyway. Hey, it's still a window.
I wanted to get a picture of my dog (can you tell he's kind of spoiled?) Whenever he hears something outside our house, he runs to one of the two windows that's behind a couch and checks it out. So here he is checking out... well... me. Because I'm outside making noise. So he'll come to the window so I can take his picture. It's a big cycle, but it ended in a cute picture, don't ya think?
Do you know how hard that is? Especially with a not-so-great automatic, point-and-click camera! I tried and tried, but could never actually see what was on the other side of the glass. I suppose it's not technically through the glass if I raised the glass, but I did it anyway. Hey, it's still a window.
I wanted to get a picture of my dog (can you tell he's kind of spoiled?) Whenever he hears something outside our house, he runs to one of the two windows that's behind a couch and checks it out. So here he is checking out... well... me. Because I'm outside making noise. So he'll come to the window so I can take his picture. It's a big cycle, but it ended in a cute picture, don't ya think?
Photo Challenge 2
Photo Challenge 2 called for something manmade.
This is the porch swing that will hopefully some day actually be a swing again! For years it lived in my husband's grandmother's garage. When we bought our first house, she gave it to us as a gift to put on our new porch. It never quite made it, however. Now it has been moved to our second home, and it patiently waiting in its spot to be washed, sanded, painted, hung, and returned to its glory days. I'm envisioning it with green pillows...
This is the porch swing that will hopefully some day actually be a swing again! For years it lived in my husband's grandmother's garage. When we bought our first house, she gave it to us as a gift to put on our new porch. It never quite made it, however. Now it has been moved to our second home, and it patiently waiting in its spot to be washed, sanded, painted, hung, and returned to its glory days. I'm envisioning it with green pillows...
Photo Challenge 1
For Shimelle's first photo challenge we were to take a picture of something up close.
This is my dog's tennis ball. It is rarely out in the open and not moving. If he sees it, he wants to play ball. I mean, that's what it's there for, right? But for some reason this evening, he left it behind for something slightly more important. Not much pulls him away from the ball - usually only thunder or a really loud truck that must be barked away. So while he was away, I snapped a close up of the tennis ball - because I may never get that close to it again!
This is my dog's tennis ball. It is rarely out in the open and not moving. If he sees it, he wants to play ball. I mean, that's what it's there for, right? But for some reason this evening, he left it behind for something slightly more important. Not much pulls him away from the ball - usually only thunder or a really loud truck that must be barked away. So while he was away, I snapped a close up of the tennis ball - because I may never get that close to it again!
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Happy Days
It's been awhile. July was eaten alive with class work. I took two education classes in my quest to be a certified English/Theatre teacher. And I also had a stumbling experience that I blogged about but have yet to post. I may yet. But it drained my blogging energy and consumed my thoughts, and since I wasn't ready to be public with my experience, I didn't blog at all.
But, here I am. I found out this weekend that a scrapbooker I follow, Shimelle, is hosting an online crop! I'm kind of excited because I haven't scrapbooked in at least a month and a half (July = 8 major class projects). She's posting challenges on the hour for 12 hours each day Friday-Sunday. Yes, it's Saturday night, and no I have yet to complete or even start any one of them. But, her "deadline" gives me all day Sunday and Monday to work, and that's only if I want to be entered to win something. Her challenges could simply be inspiration. Either way, I'm looking forward to a couple of happy days of scrapbooking!
So, since hubby returns to work Monday after the summer holiday, I will be home with only my work to distract me. And I think it can wait at least a day.
Check it out if you want to play along!
But, here I am. I found out this weekend that a scrapbooker I follow, Shimelle, is hosting an online crop! I'm kind of excited because I haven't scrapbooked in at least a month and a half (July = 8 major class projects). She's posting challenges on the hour for 12 hours each day Friday-Sunday. Yes, it's Saturday night, and no I have yet to complete or even start any one of them. But, her "deadline" gives me all day Sunday and Monday to work, and that's only if I want to be entered to win something. Her challenges could simply be inspiration. Either way, I'm looking forward to a couple of happy days of scrapbooking!
So, since hubby returns to work Monday after the summer holiday, I will be home with only my work to distract me. And I think it can wait at least a day.
Check it out if you want to play along!
Friday, July 2, 2010
Weeds, Weeds, Go Away
I weeded my flower beds! They were so overgrown that you couldn't even see the mulch below. But I actually got out of bed at a decent hour this morning, slathered on the sunscreen (on top of the burn I got from a trip to the pool earlier this week) and attacked the weeds that had taken over my pretty yellow flowers and bright pink roses. About half way through, Mark joined me and helped get a lot of the vines out of the front - they were the nasty ones that gave me the greatest problem. I really appreciated his help!
Now we once again have a pretty flower bed:
It's the bed on the side of our house. The beds in the front have a couple of weeds, but are nothing like the one on the side was. Maybe I'll attack those weeds tomorrow.
Pretty yellow flowers! (Are they buttercups? daffodils? something else? I have absolutely no gardening knowledge...)
And bright pink roses! (I know what those are... surprisingly...)
I really only knew one thing about weeding before - you have to get the roots. I learned that it's much easier to pull the weeds out sideways instead of straight up. What I need to learn is how to make it a cleaner progress - I ended up with a lot of mess on our driveway, and was too tired by the end to clean it up properly, I'm sure. I picked up as much of the weed roots as I could and then swept the rest back into the flower beds. They'll probably burrow themselves down and grow again, just to spite me. But I'll just pull them out again. Since I know how. And now know that I can.
Now we once again have a pretty flower bed:
It's the bed on the side of our house. The beds in the front have a couple of weeds, but are nothing like the one on the side was. Maybe I'll attack those weeds tomorrow.
Pretty yellow flowers! (Are they buttercups? daffodils? something else? I have absolutely no gardening knowledge...)
And bright pink roses! (I know what those are... surprisingly...)I really only knew one thing about weeding before - you have to get the roots. I learned that it's much easier to pull the weeds out sideways instead of straight up. What I need to learn is how to make it a cleaner progress - I ended up with a lot of mess on our driveway, and was too tired by the end to clean it up properly, I'm sure. I picked up as much of the weed roots as I could and then swept the rest back into the flower beds. They'll probably burrow themselves down and grow again, just to spite me. But I'll just pull them out again. Since I know how. And now know that I can.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Catching Fire
I finished the sequel to The Hunger Games 33 hours after it came into my possession. I believe that's the fastest I've finished a book since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (which, by the way, have you seen the trailer??? So excited!!!)
Catching Fire was all I hoped it would be and more. They did definitely keep the love triangle in check - and once Katniss made her choice, she stuck with it, and didn't flounce back and forth depending on who she was with at the time (like some other girls caught in a love triangle seem to do...)
It moved very fast in parts that I didn't expect, but the reason became apparent as I discovered that the parts I was expecting were not the focus of the story. It began with their "victory tour" - a trip through all 12 districts that the champion(s) must make half way through the year. I expected this to be the bulk of the story, but it was over by seventh chapter. The idea of the book is that by attempting to beat the games by planning to commit suicide at the end of the last games instead of killing one another, Katniss and Peeta have inadvertently started a rebellion throughout the districts. The President at first makes Katniss believe that she has to appear to be so in love with Peeta on the tour so as to stop the rebellion (by making people believe that she only attempted suicide out of love, not out of an attempt to rebel against the Capitol). Katniss does her best, but fails, and then later learns that there was really no way she could have stopped the rebellion that had begun - and that President Snow must have had other reasons for prompting her actions.
Katniss lives in fear of the president and the Capitol, believing that she and her family, including Gale, are going to be squashed out of existence any day. Her fears come to reality when the President announces the special Games that are to be held in honor of the 75th Anniversary of the games - the tributes will come from the living past champions, not from the children of each district. As this settles on Katniss, she realizes that, as the only female past champion in her district, she is going back to the Games. The focus of the story, therefore, became Katniss's return to the arena to fight another year in the Hunger Games, with Peeta at her side once again.
I appreciated the reality of these characters and their actions. Katniss is not completely honorable - and even acknowledges that how can someone who won the games be honorable? She is very aware of her flaws, her inability to return Peeta's love and her unworthiness of his love (which is true, she really doesn't deserve him), the gratitude of her choice to love Gale, even though she's not sure she wants to follow through with that because she has no desire to have children of her own to be subjected to the reaping and go to the Games. These characters are consistent and developed, and while secrets abound and you never really know what's going on (because Katniss herself is never fully aware, and she's the one telling the story after all), the story weaves in such a way that there are not really any loose ends, except those that are leading you to the next part in the series.
I have really enjoyed The Hunger Games, and am looking forward to the completion of the story with Mockingjay, which is supposed to be released sometime in late August. That's a bummer, because the fall semester begins at the end of August. I'll have to squeeze in a little pleasure reading before my course load takes over.
Catching Fire was all I hoped it would be and more. They did definitely keep the love triangle in check - and once Katniss made her choice, she stuck with it, and didn't flounce back and forth depending on who she was with at the time (like some other girls caught in a love triangle seem to do...)
It moved very fast in parts that I didn't expect, but the reason became apparent as I discovered that the parts I was expecting were not the focus of the story. It began with their "victory tour" - a trip through all 12 districts that the champion(s) must make half way through the year. I expected this to be the bulk of the story, but it was over by seventh chapter. The idea of the book is that by attempting to beat the games by planning to commit suicide at the end of the last games instead of killing one another, Katniss and Peeta have inadvertently started a rebellion throughout the districts. The President at first makes Katniss believe that she has to appear to be so in love with Peeta on the tour so as to stop the rebellion (by making people believe that she only attempted suicide out of love, not out of an attempt to rebel against the Capitol). Katniss does her best, but fails, and then later learns that there was really no way she could have stopped the rebellion that had begun - and that President Snow must have had other reasons for prompting her actions.
Katniss lives in fear of the president and the Capitol, believing that she and her family, including Gale, are going to be squashed out of existence any day. Her fears come to reality when the President announces the special Games that are to be held in honor of the 75th Anniversary of the games - the tributes will come from the living past champions, not from the children of each district. As this settles on Katniss, she realizes that, as the only female past champion in her district, she is going back to the Games. The focus of the story, therefore, became Katniss's return to the arena to fight another year in the Hunger Games, with Peeta at her side once again.
I appreciated the reality of these characters and their actions. Katniss is not completely honorable - and even acknowledges that how can someone who won the games be honorable? She is very aware of her flaws, her inability to return Peeta's love and her unworthiness of his love (which is true, she really doesn't deserve him), the gratitude of her choice to love Gale, even though she's not sure she wants to follow through with that because she has no desire to have children of her own to be subjected to the reaping and go to the Games. These characters are consistent and developed, and while secrets abound and you never really know what's going on (because Katniss herself is never fully aware, and she's the one telling the story after all), the story weaves in such a way that there are not really any loose ends, except those that are leading you to the next part in the series.
I have really enjoyed The Hunger Games, and am looking forward to the completion of the story with Mockingjay, which is supposed to be released sometime in late August. That's a bummer, because the fall semester begins at the end of August. I'll have to squeeze in a little pleasure reading before my course load takes over.
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