Saturday, February 25, 2006

Oh no not again........I'm not ready!

For the last 14 years I have had the sweetest baby girl in the world, she was the safe harbor I turned to when her two older sisters challenged my very limits. (Dark Side.....remember girls ages 14 until 20! lol) When my two older drama princesses would either anger or worry me to my breaking point, I could look into the sweet face of my baby girl and say, "I remember when your sisters were as sweet as you!!" Rachel's inner light could illuminate the darkest places. She was good and kind and a total joy to be around and absolutely no drama.......Boy has that all changed.....she's now 14!!!! (The beginning of the dark side)

She has said things to me and shown new sides to her personality and I thought I had trouble before! lol  Tonight was all tears for her.....and anytime I asked what was wrong I got the Marlene Dietrich answer outta her.."I want to be alone" So I think OK, she'll talk when she's ready....or she'll spew green funk like in the exorcist! lol It started about 2 months ago.... At first I contributed it to hormones...I know about hormones.......I am a woman after all and I've raised two other girls to womanhood.

Last week we went shopping for a dress for the Turn-About-Dance.......it's her first formal dance at school that she actually wants to attend. It's a dance where the girls can ask the guys to go.......older generations know it as the "Sadie Hawkins" dance. I'm thinking ok child, your sisters did the dances at school so if you wanna go, we will buy you a dress....I sent her shopping with her 15 year old cousin so she couldn't torment me with shop to shop, dress to dress...just call me when you have decided which dress you want.

I get the call, "Mom I found the perfect dress at Marshall Fields come see it!" Well I thought it was nothing but smooth sailing after this right???? WRONG!!!! It's a lovely dress, it really is but boy does it show that there is a young woman in there quickly emerging! Where did my baby girl go??? Her Father is either going to have a heart attack when he sees that dress on his baby girl or a fit.......the heart attack I can handle! lol

So I try to get her to look at other dresses.......the one she wants is va va vooooom red.....tastefully cut to accentuate her cute figure, but I'm not ready for the world to see my woman/child daughter, not my baby, not yet! So every dress I pick out she either rolls her eyes or says "Pahleeeeeeze!" kinda like the "as if" factor. We both are quickly loosing our patience with one another.....I pick out another red dress, just not so vavoooom and she's says to me "I don't want that dress, I want this one (The one she is holding onto tightly) and if you buy that other dress I won't wear it, in fact I won't even go to the dance!!!)  Alien!!! Where is my sweet baby girl and what did you do with her????? Counting to 10 was not even an option to me! So I said, "Don't you go getting all DIVA on me child!!!!" and you know what she says to me????  "Well, I learned it from the best didn't I?" touche.....lil one touche! She got me there! lol

It's going to be a L O N G
  seven years! And Dad's verdict on the dress......he was hoping for something a lil more Amish Frock! lol  AS IF!!!! lol lol lol

If you want to read another exchange with one of my older daughters around the same age as Rach......you might enjoy this read...  (link~~~>)  Age Old Battle

Friday, February 24, 2006

Here we go again.........

Well, my 3rd tour of duty as the "Go to Mom" for everything you can't talk about with your own Mother has kicked in. My last daughter who is a Freshman in High School this year has taken the same route as her two older sisters, along with some wayward friends to find safe haven in me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about it, but it does give me a few more gray hairs to worry about. I learned with my oldest child (who is now 23) if I wanted her to trust me, I had to make it easy for her friends to trust me too. I experienced the same thing with my Middle Daughter who today is turning 20. Somewhere around 20 they return from the "dark side." They usually enter the "dark side" around 14 and then us parents are in for a rather bumpy ride, if we are privileged to really know what our children are doing, not just think we know what our children are doing.

I had one of my youngest daughter's friends show up at my door steps last night, coatless and in tears..it's still rather chilly in Chicago, even more so after the sun goes down. This child is most like me out of all my kids friends and she scares me the most. She is fearless, and really good at getting around her parents rules. That is not to hard to do when your Mother is a stay at home drunk and your Father avoids the Mother at all costs, so there is no great meeting of the minds. This child is just wanting someone to acknowledge her being, someone to make her feel special, it really doesn't matter who it is (this is what scares me!), she just wants love and attention and it going about it the wrong way.

She was out with a male friend from school, who just came out of the closet to his immigrant parents. Their reaction to his news? Send him back to Poland.....I guess that will make a straight kid out of him some how (sarcastic tone in my font.....can ya tell?) Being that my best friends since I was 10 years old is a gay male friend of mine....I can relate to this much better than most parents from my generation. The two of them spent after school at a local coffee shop in the area and met another group of teenage males two days ago. She and one of the new boys sparked instantly.....she's 14, he's a 16 year old drop out....RUN CHILD RUN!

So they agreed to hook up last night with a few of the new guys friends and go out cruising, not a big deal for most but I don't see anything good about a freshman girl out cruising with a bunch of 16 to 17 year old boys. My child was not part of this mind you, there is no going out on school nights, just to do nothing....they want to hang with their friends, then they hang out here, under my roof, not under my nose. I respect the kids boundaries and they respect mine, it's all good until that trust is broken. Well her gay friend left her in the car with the boy she liked and one of his buddies while the gay friend and his new beau went into a store. The older boy put the moves on her in the back seat and even though she was enjoying the kissing, it soon lead to some serious petting and that freaked her out, she tried to let him know he just crossed her line and he backed off and apologized but in the next heat of the moment he was all hands again. She fled the car and made her way to my house (How? I do not know, I'm just glad she got out of that situation albeit a lil scared, and scared can be a good thing.)

My first reaction was to hug this child so I did, my next reaction was to tell her that if he truly liked her, and was genuinely sorry for the wandering of the hands that he would of stopped the first time she told him to. He wouldn't of wanted to run the risk of running her off scared if he really liked and respected her. I then let into her about getting in cars with people she just met, the age differences, the expectation differences and I'm sure the "experience" difference between the two of them sexually and tons of what 'could of happened!' After awhile I drove her home, I'm sure shaking in her boots, but like I said......."A lil fear goes along way at keeping someone vigilant about keeping themselves safe!" I talked to her again at bedtime just to make sure she was ok and I talked to her again this morning before school, she is still very freaked out of what I told her about "What could of happened" because I spoke the truth about things that happened to me at that age and friends of mine, I didn't embellish, I didn't stretch the truth, I told her the hard, cold truth about what can happen at the hands of a stranger or an acquaintance.......I reiterated the fact that most woman are harmed or killed by someone they know and not by the hands of a stranger.

I sure am glad this is my last Daughter! But I am seriously wondering what my Son and his buddies will bring to my doorstep when they are becoming of age in the next couple of years!!!  Lord give me strength, cuz I'm gonna need it.

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Another Telling................LOL

Another Telling..............

A "telling" is a family story that has been passed down for years,  This was a telling that I was told about ten years ago even though it happened 40 years before that.

My Father's youngest Brother (Uncle Steve) was out running the streets of Chicago..Taylor Street to be exact with one of his life long friends Tony. It had been raining off and on all day long so when they got a break in the weather they decided to hit the streets. They were both being shipped of to Viet Nam (army) in the next couple of weeks so they wanted to get as much mischief/fun what ever you want to call it in before being deployed.

The rain held off long enough to visit who they wanted to visit, see what they wanted to see before the clouds opened up and they were caught in another down pour. So to keep from being soaked to the skin, they ducked into the closest refuge they could find.... A phone Booth ( for those that don't remember what a phone booth looked like (lol) it was a very small glass and metal booth where you could find a pay phone and if you were lucky a phone book.)

So here are two fully grown men standing in a phone booth waiting for the rain to let up when they figured they had nothing better to do then read the graffiti on the interior of the phone booth. There were your usual cab numbers, and a sporadic amount of numbers without any names when Tony came across one that read....For a good time call and then there was a name and a number beneath it.

Tony read it out loud the second time he read it and then turned to my Uncle Steve and said, "Hey! Isn't that your number?" were my Uncle with a half shocked, half pissed off voice said, "Hell Yes it is! and that is my sister's name on the wall right next to it!" That's when my Uncle realized for the first time that maybe his lil sister wasn't the good catholic girl she always pretended to be! lol

Since neither one of them had a pen to scratch out Aunt Sue's name and number, my Uncle took out his house key and scraped the metal hard enough to remove the whole For a good time call Susan at 555-5555! Upon his return home along with Tony he walked passed my Aunt Sue and quietly whispered in her ear, "You better slow down little sister  because your reputation is apparently making it into all the good phone booths!"

I think she spent that summer before high school graduation grounded to her room! lol lol lol

Today is my Grandmother's 88th birthday, she is who I get all my 'telling' from I am going to be spending the day with her and the rest of her big Irish clan and hopefully I will be gifted with yet another "Telling!"

You can find more of her "telling's in the archives of my blog.I hope you enjoy them s much as I do!

Friday, February 17, 2006

Venus/Mars thingy......finale! lol

To understand this posting please start two entries down....


 


Now I'm freezing, my boots and my pants are soaked and I'm standing outside Jim's new truck watching him squeegee minnows and water out of it, the whole time he is muttering under his breath speaking words of love I'm sure!  Now this bait shop is jumping and a hopping, men are either walking by with the look of contempt in their eyes at me, I'm sure putting two and two together was easy and that I was the reason that there are minnows in the truck and in the parking lot. Some men pass me by and just shake their head, some pass Jim a look of sympathy and some just start giggling....yes giggling like little school girls, more like "better you than me buddy" kind of giggles. lol Jim went back into the bait shop to refill the bucket with a fresh batch of minnows.........all's he really said to me is, "Try to NOT kick over this bucket ok?"....I wasn't sure if I was going to burst into tears or kick over the new bucket of minnows ...... accidentally of course! lol

All seemed to be forgiven as soon as we arrive back at the lake with bucket in hand where Jim preceded to tell everyone what I just did.......giggle giggle, laugh laugh! Now I'm officially adopted into the HE-MAN'S fishing club! lol Every hour of this two day fishing tournament the largest fish out of each category wins......so guess who caught the largest striped bass in the 10:00 a.m. hour???  ME!!!!!! lol What did I win you ask? Why I won a small round camo colored cushion that when you sit on it, it warms up! Ummmm...... just what I wanted for my 24th birthday right? Well it did make the bucket a lil more comfortable to sit on and my arse was no longer freezing! lol

Even though I was tired, soar (from sleeping on the floor) cold and wet, and this wasn't how I wanted to spend my romatic birthday weekend, the sheer joy in Jim's eyes that 'His Girl' was sitting on a bucket, on a frozen lake by his side doing something that he enjoyed to no end made it one of my favorite memories of that first year together. He just kept grabbing me and hugging me close with this stupid grin on his face...I think it was one of my best birthdays ....... HE ever had! lol lol lol

Oh, one of the men who was judging the hourly contests had a hard time believing that I even caught that fish, I actually had to prove that I did by picking up the fish again...with my gloves on of course, but that seemed to satisfy him... but then he wanted to know if I baited my own hook, and of course I said, "Absolutely not! Wax worms give me the eebie jeebies!" lol

I have now been 'Gilligan" to his "Skipper" for almost 20 years I don't enjoy fishing half as much as I enjoy his company, but I will do (almost) anything to get another look at that stupid grin on his face when 'His Girl" is sitting right next to him while he does something he really enjoys! I won't go hunting though, For one I can't sit that long and be quiet and camo makes my butt look big! lol lol lol


 


By the time the next summer came along, Jim had to get rid of that truck........between the extreme heat and humidity in Chicago land, the odor that came out of that truck was disgusting! I'm sure there were still some minnows that never made it out alive! lol

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Venus/Mars thingy.......continued

Venus/Mars thingy continued............. In order to understand this post please read the one underneath it first please! lol

Ok, it's now time for my birthday surprise! The only clue I was given was we were going back up to Lake Geneva Wisconsin and it was also Valentines weekend....lots of romantic things to do up there for sure!

I packed my usual going away for the weekend things but added a pair of warm boots. Jim's only hint...but that could mean so many things right? Skiing? Horse drawn carriage rides in the snow? Shopping in town at all the quaint little shops? I wish!!!!!

Little did I know I was entered in my first Ice Fishing Tournament! Now don't anybody go and get jealous and go on and on how spoiled I am! lol So at this point I think I am ok with this, we will be away at a nice resort right? NOT! Little did I know that he had friends up there who we were going to spending the night with....on the floor! I woke up on the floor with a cat sleeping on top of me and some strange guy sitting in a chair watching me sleep.........can you say creeeepy!!!?? lol This was soooo not going how I thought it would!

I woke up a lil freaked out, my back was hurting and I was to dress like an Eskimo to sit in an ice tent on an upside down 5 gallon bucket, waiting to pull a fish out of a frozen lake through a small hole.......needless to say I was loosing my sunny disposition and I was getting whiney! Did I mention I was whining?? lol lol lol No resort, non big feather bed, no roaring fireplace.......me and a bunch of nondescript men freezing my arse off on a cold February morning! Not even breakfast! Grrrrrr!

Jim had just bought a brand new pick up truck maybe a week earlier, it was a really nice truck. Jim was also in charge of getting the minnows for the "guys" so off I traipsed behind him to go for a ride to get the bait and attempt to ice fish.....runny nose and all.

We pull into the bait shop, we get out of the truck, we walk into the bait shop, we buy another 5 gallon bucket of minnows and we walk back out to the truck, Jim puts the bucket on the floor board up front by me so it won't slosh around on the drive, I climb up into the cab of the pick up truck and accidentally kick over the bucket of minnows.............yes all over the floor board of his new pick up truck, minnows are everywhere, some have even made it to the back seat floor board, five gallons of water travels fast and I think I am about to get killed!

He doesn't even look at me, he orders me out of the truck, get out of the truck RIGHT NOW KIM! Am I going to be strangled then stranded at a bait shop in Wisconsin? On my birthday no doubt?

Stay tuned...............

It's about that whole Venus/Mars thingy! lol

My first official date with my DH was April 13, 1986. I of course did not remember the exact date but he did! How sweet is that!!!! lol We went over 2 years before there was even one day spent apart. We fell that fast, that hard and we were loving every minute of new love.

We did special little things for one another, just to say I love you in different ways so when it was time for one of our birthdays to come up, his was first by the way......(New Years Eve Baby) that I wanted it to be extra special, extra romantic and extra sexy! lol So I booked a romantic weekend up in Lake Geneva Wisconsin at the PlayBoy Club!
Sad to say they closed down that club a few years later.

I took care of every detail.....I booked a large suite with a round bed, and it had a huge jacuzzi tub in an elegant bathroom. I packed the candles, the soft music, the massage oils, the bubble bath salts and I hit the lingerie store before going out of town....we had no plans on ever leaving the room. We arrived late Friday night and I had already ordered a bottle of wine to be chilled and waiting for us along with a fresh loaf of french bread and various cheeses. The next day we awoke to breakfast in bed, spent the day just relaxing and being alone with one another. Since we both came into the relationship with small children, this was the first time we were ever alone for any period of time.........it was (think of the most fantastic word and insert here! lol) I'm going to use the word magical!

We had every meal brought to us, some we ate in bed and some came  set up on a white table clothed, candle lit table. I wanted it to be the best birthday he ever had and he said then and still says today that any birthday spent with me was his best birthday ever.....we never celebrated another New Years Eve again, I always made sure that day was spent celebrating him.

On our last day there we spent it wondering around the snow covered grounds and enjoyed one last cocktail in front of the roaring fireplace. We made good use of the jacuzzi tub and the silk covered, round bed before heading back home, heading back to reality and our busy lives of working and kids. It would be exactly 43 days until my Birthday and I was breathlessly waiting to see how he would plan mine. Well that phrased coined later about how Men are from Mars and women are from Venus......sad to say it is soooo true...... I finally realized that we spent his birthday doing the things I wanted to do and we were to spend my birthday doing the things he wanted to do.........and girls it didn't include fine wine, finer chocolates and bubble baths!

Continued later!  ;)

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Words of love and roses

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Our love is perfect
for while I write you poetry
you gift me with roses.
when it comes to sweet nothings
we are both fluent.
our souls speak of the love
that only our hearts can hear.

 

Our fingers wrap in perfection
to the curve of one another's hand
our mouths will never hunger
for the lips of others.

 

Our eyes are blind to how
others may want us to see
 but we need only to look
unto one another to feel
absolute love, pure and fulfilling

 

Happy Valentine's Day
My Sweet!

Monday, February 13, 2006

Birthday Wishes

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kmh 2006

I swear the older I get the better my birthday's get! When I turned 41 I finally got that pony I had been whining about for 30 years, last year on my 42nd birthday I went on a cruise with my girlfriends to Baja California (Thanks Jim) and then this year I had a whole birthday weekend! Friday night home with DH (very rare lol) and my last two lil ones, Saturday spent with friends and then Sunday (my actual birthday) was spent with more family and even more friends. Can I tell how how excited I am about what next years birthday might bring?? lol lol lol


 


The photo above is of one of the roses that my Middle daughter and her boyfriend gave to me, along with other "spoil me" gifts. She is the ultimate glitter girl and even the roses she gave me had to have glitter.


Thanks to all who stopped by and left birthday wishes for me, you will never know how much I appreciated your time, your comments and all your birthday wishes!

Sunday, February 12, 2006

I collected another birthday today Ü

Today I collected another Birthday! So far I have collected 43 of them.....each one is a favorite. Last night was spent with good wine, good food and great friends and thanks to my Sister I awoke this morning to a kid free zone........Just me and Jim! Those moments are few and far between and waking up with nothing to do but whisper "I love you" and then to be answered back by another whisper in the dark of "I love you too"

"The gift of love, the only gift I don't mind returning!"

Friday, February 10, 2006

Announcing My New Photo Blog Ü

Since I seem to be in my photo manic mode, I thought maybe this is the perfect time to start a new blog featuring more of my work. My blog "Did I shave my legs for this?" will still feature some of my photography but  since I have been out shooting a lot lately, I wanted  a place to share more of my work.

So without further aduie............
Photographic Memory

Thursday, February 9, 2006

"Old Love" revisited

I once had a young man care very much about me, and all these years later, I know he love me. There was something about Kevin that kept me drawn to him, we saw each other off and on over 3 year period but I never knew how he felt about me. His eyes told me he loved me, but his words let him down.......I understand that now, but at 19 I didn't. He wanted to be with me more then I knew, I found that out after it was too late.

I think we all have those lost loves, the ones that we still think about from time to time even though we are perfectly content with who we are with now. I've always known Jim (DH) is my forever love, the one who I was meant to be with, he is the one that I would of regretted loosing. I don't regret loosing Kevin, what I do regret is we left a lot of words unspoken.

The last time I saw Kevin he had come looking for me, what he didn't know was I had been married to Jim for a little more than a week. When I saw him walking up to me all I could do was search his eyes. I saw what I had always seen just hidden behind them, but it was now too late. I covered his mouth with my finger, I didn't want to hear what he was finally ready to say to me, then I kissed his mouth the way old friends kiss, not the way old lovers do. I then whispered, "I know" and I walked quickly away........ I didn't look back and he didn't call my name or try to stop me.

My mind flashed back to the last time I had seen him before that...... again he had come to look for me and found me at an old stomping ground of mine. The club and the dance floor were full of people, and the old love song "Never gonna let you go" by Sergio Mendes was softly playing. Kevin walked up to me and kissed me the way old lovers kissed and said, "This song says  everything I could never say."


Never Gonna Let You Go ( Sergio Mendes )

I was as wrong as I could be to let you get away from me
I'll regret that move for as long as I'm living
But now that I've come to see the light
All I wanna do is make things right
So just say the word and tell me that I'm forgiven

You and me
We're gonna be better than we were before
I loved you then but now I intend
To open up and love you even more
This time you can be sure

I'm never gonna let you go
I'm gonna hold you in my arms forever
Gonna try and make up for all the times
I hurt you so
Gonna hold your body close to mine
From this day on we're gonna be together
Oh, I swear this time
I'm never gonna let you go

Looking back now it seems so clear
I had it all when you were here
Oh, you gave it all and I took it for granted
But if there's some feeling left in you
Some flicker of love that still shines through
Let's talk it out
Let's talk about second chances

Wait and see
It's gonna be sweeter than it was before
I gave some then but now I intend
To dedicate myself to giving more
This time you can be sure

I'm never gonna let you go
I'm gonna hold you in my arms forever
Gonna try and make up for all the times
I hurt you so
Gonna hold your body close to mine
From this day on we're gonna be together
Oh, I swear this time
I'm never gonna let you go

[break]

So if you'll just say you want me too...

I'm never gonna let you go
I'm gonna hold you in my arms forever
Gonna try and make up for all the times
I hurt you so
Gonna hold your body close to mine
From this day on we're gonna be together
Oh, I swear this time
I'm never gonna let you go

Never gonna let you go
Hold you in my arms forever
Gonna try and make up for all the times
I hurt you so
Hold your body close to mine
From this day on we're gonna be together
Oh, I swear this time
I'm never gonna let you go


At some place and time we both let go..........but I do know now that you loved me then.... never leave words unspoken...... there is always too much to loose.

Wednesday, February 8, 2006

"wagon" photo (sepia)

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kmh 2006

Like it! Like it! Yes I do!

"I might swear in many languages but I only kiss in French!"

I'm not sure who wrote this.....but I like it!

Tuesday, February 7, 2006

Girlz Get Way set in motion!

Another good thing happened during Poker Night...we are doing another "Desperate Housewife" get-away trip. This time last year we were packing for our cruise to Baja California.....we had a blast with out any international incidents, well we had a few but they were all legal! lol So why were sitting around and reminiscing about all the fun we had on that trip, we decided we needed to run away again.


We discussed vegas.....shot down we really could get in some trouble there and at home. We discussed LA...shot down, we can't afford to shop there right now, I have a daughter getting married this summer, another Girl Friend is having her dream home built, and others had their own reasons why. We discussed Miami and I'm not sure why that got shot down yet, but we all agreed on a quick trip to Nashville!


We want to go honkey tonking and there is no better place to do that than Music Row! So I'm dragging out all my boots (a girls gotta have em in all colors ya know) and shining up my belt buckle and we are going to see if our Badonkadonk's can still skake that way! lol Did I mention that we are all karaeoke idiots??? Nashville will never be the same! lol lol lol


Now we just have to pick a weekend that most of us can get-away and the girlz will be on the loose! I think we are going to recoin an old phrase......Whatever Happens in Nashville.......STAYS IN NASHVILLE! How far away is Memphis from there......if I'm going south, I wanna see GRACELAND TOO! lol

Monday, February 6, 2006

For a moment I was a kid again! Ü

Saturday night was Poker Night again. I was sitting there behind the bar at my sister's house (I'm the official bar tender since poker is not my forte! lol) just watching everybody really enjoy each other's company. Everyone was laughing and having a good time, and I was taking a moment to feel how blessed I am to have those kind of friendships and those kind of moments.

It also took me back in time to when I was a little girl and we would go to my Great Aunt Mary and Great Uncles Bing's house for family parties. I would sit there off in the corner and watch my parents and all my Aunts and Uncles dance with one another and a cocktail or a cigarette in hand and thought how glamorous they all looked, I remember wanting to grow up and be just like them. So now I fastward and there I sat, the adult at a party watching the other adults converse, play cards and dance with the kids run from room to room laughing and playing and eating everything on the side table and thought to myself....... there's the next generation, sitting watching the adults have a good time and I wondered if any of them wanted to be just like us when they grew up?

Now if I can just find a clear glass oriental wind chime with painted flowers and chinese symbols on it with a bright red tassle on the bottom of it like the one that used to hang in Aunt Mary and Uncle Bing's basement, I could have been that 6 year old girl.....waiting for a beloved Uncle to come by and pick me so I could make it chime one last time.

"MOSS" Photo

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kmh 2006


Another photo while exploring the yard. I didn't have anything in particular I wanted out of this photo, so I just did some random adjustments and angles and I kinda ended up with a 3D effect. So it's just another photo of another obsession of mine.......TREES!  Mother Nature the ultimate architect.


 


 

Sunday, February 5, 2006

"Under Water" Photo

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kmh 2006


I was wondering around the yard today, just looking for something interesteing to shoot and I came across some leaves floating just below the surface of a puddle and I liked the composition very much! Since I was feeling very artsy today in an abstract kind of way, I thought I would shoot in extreme close up. I'm kinda pleased with the way this shot turned out. You can see the depth of color between the blue sky and the whispy clouds floating by and murkiness in thewater and if you look real close you can see a few surface bubbles.  That's what I love about photography even a puddle of leaves can become art! lol

Friday, February 3, 2006

Barn Storming (again)

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kmh 2006


 


We had a half rain, half wet snow come through this morning and since I had to run out for a bit and I always keep my camera right by the front door, I decided to go barnstorming again!  I swear I bet the owners of some of these old farm houses in my area that haven't sold out to the land developersyet, think I am some kind of farmhouse stalker! lol lol lol


I am surprised I haven't been peppered with buck shot the way I think I have the God given right to traipse around anywhere I damn please as long as I have my camera in hand! I can't help it....I LOVE THEM! lol


 


 

Looking Back..........

Whewwww! It seems I snuck past depression this winter without any big issues. Here it is the beginning of February already and I noticed that it stayed light outside until just a lil past 5:30 yesterday evening.  For me sunlight plays a major role in gauging the passing of winter.

Because of my passion for life, people have a hard time understanding what winter does to me, it all started 12 years ago. I think what triggered it was the fact that I had spent half of my life with my father and half of my life without him, he died when I was 16 and it was almost the 16th year since his death. I don't know why that was such a huge "marker" of time, but it really did a number on me. I don't think most men really understand the role a Father plays in a daughters life, if they did and they could think past themselves for a moment, some of them might stick around more often. I cannot tell you how many grown women are a lil messed up in their own way because of "Father Issues." With my Father choosing booze (yes I said choose! You can either choose to get help or your choose NOT to, it is a choice to me) over his relationship with his family, particularly me made it very difficult for the young men in my life when I was younger. They had to jump hoops to prove to me that they had staying ability. It's not that I was insecure because I wasn't, I just needed them to prove how much they wanted to be with me.  What a diva! lol lol lol

I did 2 years of therapy and almost 3 years of meds back then, but at sometime shortly after that I decided to go med free. I don't suggest this for anyone, but it did well for me. I have learned to battle it in other ways..... Now I am almost symptom free. I still get the blues now and then and my share of the winter doldrums, but nothing like it was back then. Here is a link to some positive ways I handle this, I blogged about it my first winter of writing again. It was a four part series. 
"Dealing with Depression"


Sometimes is good to look back now and then, it helps you to see just how far you came!

Wednesday, February 1, 2006

"Bronzed Head" Photo series (3)

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kmh 2006

"Bronzed Athlete" Photo Series (2)

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kmh 2006

"Bronze Hands" Photo

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I had an awesome day with my camera. I ran around town today taking several shots of the bronze statues we have here.  I didn't realize that I was drawn to them until I grabbed my camera one day and went snooping around the neighborhood. I like to shoot from different angles, not really dead center shots.  When shooting from different angles, it gives a better view of the art work put into the statues. 


 


I have more to share with you later.......I thought this was a perfect shot to open with considering the hands are writing! 

Round Robin Challenge...Silly Animals

Celeste of My day and thoughts has a great topic for our next Round Robin Photo Challenge: Silly Animals!


Catch that silly animal in the act.


Karen and Carly have more postings to show you
over at  The Round Robin Photo Challenges


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Camera shy my "Ass"   Oops My Bad! lol


kmh 2004