My Daddy, My Hero!! Day 31

Today's theme is "my hero" and that was a no brainer.  It  is my Dad, my P-Paw-Di-Daddly-O, my Pep, and also Dadoo.  He has been the man in my life through all my ups and downs.  He was the one that taught me to get back on the horse when it throws you, to be tough but kind, that you can only expect to get top notch results if you put in top notch effort.  Well on that last on he actually said "First class, not half-assed." but I know what he meant.  He always said "Be smart." every day when I left for school and even when I did some dumb stuff he was always there to give a hug and tell me the lesson my punishment was going to teach me.  He is intelligent, hard-working, kind and caring, a total romantic (even we kids got candy on Valentine's and Sweetest Days) and a darn funny guy.  I am finding out that his penchant for making up nonsense songs is hereditary and am becoming more grateful for that every day.  I love ya, Pep!!  I just wish we lived closer so I could have come and taken a picture today instead of using one from last month.   This has also brought to my attention that I don't have a single recent photo of me and my Dad together so I will have to remedy that ASAP.

The Big Evil, Seducer of Innocents - Day 30

The theme of the day is "Your favorite place to relax and think in your town." excluding your home.  Sadly, the place I go far more often than anywhere else is the Wal-Mart Supercenter.  I do go sometimes just to walk around and have some away from home time, especially since it has been so unbearably hot this summer.  Once upon a time several jobs and almost 10 years ago I was the account coordinator for one of Wal-Mart's main plastic sign suppliers The "Ask for help with items on the top shelf." signs were all us. Random tidbit - Wal-Mart almost changed it to "Ask for assistance" but thought their average shopper might not understand that as well as "Ask for help" so they think we're all pretty dumb.  If you ever see the "Ask for assistance" version it is because my company ordered the wrong ones but Wal-Mart would not waste them - hope we didn't confuse anyone with that multi-syllabic word in there.  Anyway, I avoided the place for years afterwards, but since this is 1 exit up the freeway from me and open 24 hours it is too convenient to not go to.  I am a lemming.

This was taken with my sister-in-law's Konica Minolta Dynax 7D - which may become mine once I test drive it a bit.  It's only a 6.1megapixel, but outperforms mine at night without flash like in this shot.  it also has awesome anti-shake and a nifty review mode that shows under and overexposed areas in the photo just taken.  Lovin' it and the awesome zoom lens it came with, I will now be a double camera toting wedding photographer.  How cool am I?

We've Been Adopted - Day 29

Today's theme was "your favorite piece of clothing" but as I am in maternity clothes I have no favorite at the moment except maybe my comfy boxers and no one gets to see those but me and my husband!  Instead here is a photo of the kitty that has officially adopted us.  Currently going by the creative name of Mew she came home via Chad from the Kia store he works at.   They figured our woods were a better home than the dumpster she was living under, but warned that she was feral and no one could get near her so she had to be caught in a trap for transport.  Needless to say she & I were buddies within a week and she was fearless, not feral.  She disappeared about two weeks ago and I feared the worst, but I heard her distinctive "mew" on Saturday night and went out to see her.  She was just fine so I brought her to the garage to eat and she hasn't left since.  She even spends the nights with Max out in the garage.  Not planning on letting her in the house since we already have two cats and a dog.

Pat A Cake Party! - Day 28

Yeah, had to put my own twist on today's theme "Close up of a couple holding hands".  This is a photo of a couple of the greatest brothers ever.  Aidan was a huge help entertaining Ethan tonight while I made dinner.  They played a version of the shell game with Aidan hiding Ethan's keys under one of the margarine tubs, swirling them around and letting Ethan guess where it was.  Ethan guessed correctly almost every time which cracked Aidan up, it was kinda weird how accurate he was.  Then Aidan decided the margarine tubs made a great hat and Ethan clearly agreed because he kept all three of them on for almost 45 minutes.  Finally they played Pat-A-Cake and baked enough cakes for the whole family including the dog who appears to be looking for his in the photo.  Yup, a good day!!

Home Sweet Home - Day 27

Today the theme was "the view from your back door".  Nice and straightforward, I like it.  I also really love my back yard.  This is actually the view from my driveway since the back door is a slider and the porch roof cuts into the view too much.  We have grass, our lovely little white fence which starts what I think of as our park.  The park (or back back as my husband calls it) has some nice trees so me and the boys like to play out there.  The woods (or the way back in Chad-speak) are ours to for about an acre and have some trails, deer, a badger and according to Chad a weasel he spotted last week.  We used to have an outdoor kitty that I was feeding but she went missing almost two weeks ago.  I am rather hoping that has nothing to do with the new weasel.  And we have lovely I-76 on the far right complete with exit ramp.  I like it though I know most people think I am crazy.  It makes for interesting people watching and the sound is mostly blocked out in the house, but is soothing regardless. I am hoping we get to use Ethan's pool a few more times this season, but it has a tear in the bottom that I need to patch first. 

Today has been an okay day.  Chad is supposed to have Friday's off but went in from 10-2:45.  Grrrr.....especially since Wednesday is his other day off and he went to work from 9-4:30 that day.  Ethan's cold is a little better today, mine is a little worse.  Aidan, aside from a debacle on Monday, had an excellent first week at school which is absolutely fabulous and more than I had hoped for. Going to get some couch time in tonight with the husband, we're watching Season 5 of Weeds on Netflix.  Instant view through our Wii has been such a blessing - I can't think of the last time I watched something live on TV - yay!

Air Jakey!! Day 26

Today we were supposed to take a photo of someone jumping in the air.  Since Ethan and I are camping our in our PJs all day on account of both having cruddy colds neither of us were destined to be the subject of today's photo.  Fortunately I have a dog and two cats and just like in the cartoons Max cannot resist chasing the kitties.  So I simply plopped a cat, Jake to be specific, in front of him and followed with my camera.  I'd have used Huggers, but she is too furry and too fast and tends to blur at any shutter speed :o)  

Yeah, I know the cat is more in the act of landing than in midair, but this is all I have to give today.  Sorry.

E is for...... Day 25

Today's theme was to pick a letter and photograph something that started with that letter.  This is not a new photo, it was actually from Ethan's 3 month old photos that never made the final cut because he was too squirmy for me to get far enough to frame it and he was squinty.  I do want to utilize his lovely letter 'E' in a future photo shoot with him, but at the moment it would either a) be in his mouth b) be used to bean himself, me or both in the head or c) be offered up to the dog as a treat so I will have to be patient.  Anyway, 'E' is for Ethan who is my Everything, my Eternal Joy and my Extra Sweet Little Guy. 

Today was a good and bad day.  Good because I got a deposit to hold a date for wedding photography job in December.  Then I got a call to book me for another wedding in October, deposit to be made tomorrow.  Oddly enough that was a referral from my ex-husband who didn't even know I have made photography my career, he just knew I'd always wanted to.  It was actually his niece that got me started on people photos, since I was always called on to take photos of her and her friends all dressed up for their high school formal dances.  The bad of the day is that Ethan has a cold.  This is only the second time he has been sick in his life which is really good, but his little cough breaks my heart and a runny nose is not his best look.  I also had another darn migraine.  Bad enough that I only have a hazy recollection of this afternoon.  Thank goodness Ethan is a self-entertainer and we've set up a baby safe play area in the living room.  I turned his toy bin on its side and lay on the floor and let him crawl around and over me until he finally napped.  I thought I was done with those (they're pregnancy related) because I went 4 days without one last week, but had one Sunday and now today so I guess I'll be investing in more Tylenol.