A Rainy Escapade!

Ever since the morning of last Sunday, it has rained in some form or other at some time of day. Usually the storms roll in at about two or three a.m., complete with long, drawn out drums of muffled thunder, and then the bright slash of lightning across the early morning sky. My mom always pops her head into my room and says in her tired, but alert morning voice, "Unplug your computers, girls. Got some big storms rolling through," and then shuts the door quietly so as to not wake up the peewees across the hall. Of course, they're already awake, and I can hear them as I drag myself out of bed. Using my Nintendo DS for light, I climb down from my bunk and take several more steps to where the two matching computer desks are. Underneath is an extension cord that I get onto my knees in order to pull away from the power strip. I hear a dull blink as the power is cut off from the resting machines, then groan, stretch, and crawl back into bed. By this time, however, I am already wide awake, but the sound of the storm outside makes me feel snuggy in my home, in my room, in my bed under the covers, and the sheets of rain pummeling the roof above lulls both my sister and I back to sleep.







It's been raining all week. As a result of the storms, every plant outside is the most vivid green ever, booming with life. After getting home from eating out this evening, I could not help but grab a camera and hurry to take rainy pictures before it got dark outside. Sadly, the camera I normally use didn't work well in the overcasty light, so I had to go and borrow one of my mom's cameras, for she has many. And, wow. I fell in love. That camera is an angel. I took too many pictures to count with both cameras, but only the photos I took with my mom's camera actually came out the way I wanted. I would have posted about nineteen different pictures from my watery escapade today, but it proved to be too much for one post, so I chose the best from the best I had selected previously and those few finalists are featured here in all their rain-covered goodness.









Needless to say I had a blast finding subjects for my photos, and most ranged from dew-covered clovers near the garden hose in the grass to the rows of rocks my brother lined up on the walkway about a week before, dubbing them his army.
Smooshed clovers on the deck steps, a shovel lying dead in the grass, some plants my mom had originally planted somewhere that somehow wound up somewhere completely different, the many living clovers covering the yard, there was just too much to take pictures of! I was outside for at least an hour.






There is nothing better than a rainy day. Sure, sunny days are fun when you want to go out and do something, but on the rainy days you get to sit snuggy indoors and stare out the window as God waters the earth from high, high above. When thought about that way, it gives a whole new meaning to rainy days, the days God tenderly tends to one of His creations. But it isn't only nature that He showers tenderly with love and life. I am grateful that He does the same for me and my family, constantly blessing us every day, taking care of us lovingly, for we are His children, and He is truly our great Father.

I hope you all enjoy the photos as much as I do!

Ode to Glimmering Blossoms. Ode to Photography.

Sunset was the perfect time for me to run outside...

...and take pictures of the peach tree blossoms once again.

I always take as many pictures as I can whenever the tree is in bloom.

This was just a nice way to give a new flair to the same blossoms.

I hope you all enjoy the beauty of the flowers as I do.

I have a perfectly healthy obsession with photography. I carry my camera with me near constantly (unless I forget) and am not ashamed to stand in a parking lot with my camera held up in front of my face, snapping pictures like a crazy tourist. What is probably the strangest thing about it ,though, is that I do not live in a tourist town. o.o

Ever since I started blogging about photos (way back when), I started looking at things in a different way before, a way I never thought about prior to my escapades in photography. Suddenly all the normal plants, rocks, benches, stone walls that I had seen hundreds of times before suddenly shone with new light, new life, almost. Before they had just been something I either accepted as there or thought was kinda neat. But now I see everything as if it has its own personality, living or not. Aside from that, I feel the need to documents everything from personal achievements to the random thought in pictures. Example: yesterday as I was making ramen for lunch, I was swooning over the smell of the boiling noodles. I hadn't put the special flavor powder in yet, so it was simply the smell of the noodles wafting up from the pan and splashing across my face. It was just so pleasant that I am sure I could have sat there all day if the noodles wouldn't burn to the bottom of the pan. I asked my mom if my sister's camera had batteries in it (for mine had a full card), and felt a pang of sadness when I heard it was currently without the life-giving things. As random as it would have been, I was actually looking forward to taking pictures of the pan and writing about the amazing smell of the plain noodles inside. End of rabbit trail.

It just seems that whatever I do now, I look for something to take a picture of, some way of documenting my thought on whatever the subject of that picture may be.

Perhaps this is a step forward! Here I thought I couldn't write about myself without feeling guilty somehow, but I seem to be writing my opinion (or even formulating one in my mind in the first place) quite often about what pictures I take! It is a miracle! ^o^

Release the Inner Cuteness!

This is why I carry a camera around with me wherever I go. x3

This is Dakota. She thinks she's a wild cat. She will gladly roll around under your feet, trying to bite you and drool on you in the process. She loves the smell of socks and shoes, and will drool on those too. Her purr sounds like a lawnmower sometimes and she walks around with her tail bent almost parallel to her spine.

She also likes to sleep on my bunk. She crawls up there silently and snuggles into the blankets without even a peep. But when she falls asleep and starts to dream, the mewling starts. She's probably dreaming that she is a ferocious tiger prowling through India, stalking helpless prey...drooling on them, and then rolling all over their feet and clothing.

This picture was taken as I was cleaning some things off my bed: a few t-shirts and whatnot. I'd stand on the lower bunk and lean over the rail to grab my things, then jump back down (I'm rather short, so it's a climb for me). When I hopped back down, Dakota slowly got up, mewed at me, then leaned her head on the rail. To make the pose even more perfect for pictures than it already was, she put her cute little tootsies up next to her chin...! It was too much for me, so I quickly ran and got my camera, snapping as many pictures of her little purring self as I could. Sadly, the lighting was not optimum for taking pictures, and to be honest I think the color of the wall messed it up, too. I got nothing but blurry shots. It's enough for me, though, even if I can't sharpen the image any better than it is now with the editing software that comes on my computer.

But at least I got a bunch of cute pics of her being adorable. x3 She is the sweetest little thing in the world, even if she tries to eat my toes.

Ode to Day of Green

Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day and I was close to completely oblivious to it.
I wore blue a majority of the morning, forgetting I was to be wearing green, got pinched for (apparently) no good reason, and only when I got on the Internet did I even begin to wonder what day it was exactly....

Seeing all of the articles about St. Patrick on my homepage as I went to check my email spurred me on to look at the calendar on my desk. I checked the date on my computer, then moved things off the calendar to see if today was, in fact, St. Patty's Day. Sure enough, it was, and I couldn't believe that I had forgotten.

It was a drop dead gorgeous day outside, so the entire family was outside as soon as possible, frolicking around in the sun, throwing and kicking toys around, digging, tossing the dirt into the air, things like that. My sister sat in the shade either drawing or reading while I, the oldest and most mature (coughcough) stood at the complete opposite end of the yard and was content with seeing how far I could hum-chuck a plastic ball through the air. Turns out, it nearly hit my sister a few times, and then nearly KO-ed my little brother. -evil laugh- Might I add that I can't aim worth a flip, but I can throw rather well, sooooo. Yeah. =D

However, I grew tired of standing in the blazing sun, went inside and changed into a cooler outfit, then ran around with my camera taking pictures of all the lovely flowers that litter the front yard. We have many different types of fruit trees, and then there are those strange little white flowers that pop up out of the grass every year that remain nameless to me, and then the dandelions, which my mom specifically said were reserved for the bees, much to the dismay of the two squirts. Thankfully, there were enough fallen peach blossoms to keep them happy, so the little puffs of yellow in the grass were spared the agony of being plucked by little kids. xD

Then around dinner time we all went to town, ate out, then went shopping. I went straight to the book section and had a blast there, then followed my dad around the store with my face stuffed in a PS3 magazine.
Surprisingly, no one was wearing green or orange. o.o Then again, neither was I, but I thought everyone wore some sort of green on St. Patty's Day? Guess not.

The weather had gotten to be significantly cooler than when I went into the store, so I was going to freeze if I went outside. My mom gave me her long denim coat (Yay for Mom!), which was normal looking on her. But when I put it on, the thing was HUGE. Now, my mom isn't big, I'm just really small, so, to get a better picture of this, try getting a trench coat, then super size it and put it on a toddler. Maybe a slight exaggeration, but that's what I felt like. Needless to say everyone was laughing, including me, as we all walked out to the car.

Well, despite lack of green dominance, I had a wonderful day taking pictures and being a geek. =P Hope you enjoyed the pictures and story of my day. xD

Egg Grenade: Part Dos!

The mysterious egg grenade returns!...and it has grown!

When you last saw this creation, it was simply a blank head. Well, folks, it has been growing bit by bit ever since that time before Valentine's Day, and now it has stopped once more. As in the post before that featured this particular pattern-less figure, I am once more in the middle of a dilemma: what on earth do I stuff the body with?!

I previously stated my lack of common stuffing materials (polyester, cotton, fabric, other crocheted bits), and it is no different now. Of course, I did find some old and rather different looking bits of crocheted things that I had sewn together in a terrible parody of a several-coins long quilt, so I gladly stuffed it in the head. But what for the body? It's rather large (about two inches, I'd guess. There's no ruler and measuring tape nearby, sadly) and is hollow. I thought about stuffing it with paper, but that would rule out ever wanting to put the finished product in the washer. o.o Nicht gut. Not good. I can just imagine pulling the poor thing out and seeing paper shreds protruding from between the crocheted stitches. -swallows hard-

Well, I'll sleep on it I suppose. Maybe something will pop into my mind tonight. Anyone have suggestions as to what to use as stuffing?

Sunshine On the Mind

Everywhere I look, I see something yellow. Every time I turn around, there is some darling object just begging to be seen with it's sunshiny, golden voice, almost bouncing about on invisible legs, waving its transparent arms about to get attention.

As spring rounds the corner, all the sleeping beauties are awakening from their earthen slumbers. The fruit trees are beginning to reveal their colorful blossoms, the daffodils have poked out of the ground (more yellow! =O ), and the warm air is stirred quite often by the most beautiful cool wind in the history of mankind!

How I long to simply spend all my time outdoors sitting in the shade, letting the wind play in my hair and cool my skin....

Aside from family projects to bring the outside of the house back to life (ranging from raking, cleaning the gardens and planting new ones) , my room is being repainted and re-carpeted!

The walls have been the most adorable green for many, many years, but my sister and I felt it was time for a change. We decided to go with yellow, so my parents went out and came back with the color we have on the walls now. We were hoping it would be a bit of a lighter yellow than it is, but it's growing on us quite a bit. =)

And, on a random note, the paint (which is earth-friendly) smells exactly like eggnog. o.o We were all wanting to eat the wall as it was being painted~

Yesterday I went to the finals of the poetry contest I entered and had a blast at the museum while I waited for my contest division to start. =D I'm constantly amazed by the magnificent paintings and the wonderful photography displayed there. I could never paint anything like that, but my talent lies in writing, anyway. Particularly poetry.

So, long story short, I won first place for the second time in a row and then went with my family to Panda Express to celebrate, just as we have for the past two wins of mine. We all had a blast and it was a simply gorgeous day (the other two times I went to the finals were freezing cold and raining. This was the first time it was warm and sunny. xD ).

So, my hiatus is over and with all the creative flow I have gotten from the poetry contest, I'll no doubt be making and writing all sorts of things. I look forward to posting here again! Oh blog, how I've missed you!

God Bless Japan and All Tsunami Victims

"The LORD will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble. And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou, LORD, hast not forsaken them that seek thee." Psalm 9:9-10

God bless all who are affected by the tsunami and earthquakes. Japan and all people affected by the earthquakes and tsunamis shall be in my prayers.