Just a pic

Don't really have much to say today...not that there's nothing on my mind...just nothing to share right now. Looking forward to getting recharged at church tonight. Happy Wednesday, ya'll. ☺

Frost on my windshield this morning.

Take a Walk with Me...

I love walks. I love them even more at dusk. Everything seems to be heightened. The colors, the scents, even the sounds. Each step I take I'm seeing, hearing, or smelling something that feeds my soul. And now that I have an iPhone I'm able to capture some of these moments, though only for our eyes. I can't capture the smell of the water as I pass a sprinkler. The sound of a child giggling on the porch. The scent of the blossoms that cover the trees. The sound of something scurrying in the bush. The sound of the cardinal high in the tree. The scent of friends grilling in their back yard. These things along with the beauty I see with my eyes make up the whole experience of a walk through God's amazing creation.

The beauty of blooms...

Even the beauty of the weeds...

The sun trying to come through the trees as it sets...

An empty road...

A perfect climbing tree...

A dream...

Simplicity...

But more than anything else....the beauty of love forever true...

And yet I still don't feel like I've properly conveyed the whole experience to you. So next time, you'll just have to come with me. :-)

Oops....

Well I guess I didn't do the once a month thing....lol The story of my blog-life. :-P But!!!! I have good news and bad news.....

Bad news first. My dinosaur laptop finally gave up the ghost. I worked it to death editing photos and browsing the Internet. lol It had a good life and served me well. Finances being what they are though I won't be looking into getting a new one for a bit yet. In the mean time, the good news! I now have a smart phone!!! :-D When I first got it I said it was almost like having a laptop and I'm believing that more and more. lol Blogging  is the next thing that I'm learning to do on it. So hopefully I'll do a little better (enjoy it more??) at the whole blogging thing. :-)

As for an update one recent events? Well I'm gonna be an Auntie again times TWO this November!!! And right now I'm getting geared up for the first big summer event-Church camp! :-) There's been lots more going on and is even more coming up but that's what's on the calendar right now.

See ya'll around hopefully sooner rather than later! :-)

Jan/2013 Happy New Year!

So....I'm gonna give it another shot! This whole blogging thing. lol As the Summer hit last year all hope of doing a daily/365 blog was completely lost but ... I'm thinking I might be able to do a post once a month. So here's my first post of the year! (yes, I'm technically 21 days late but shhh...don't tell lol)

Though late, the year is still new. I love the beginning of a year. It feels so fresh. You can feel the mistakes and the oldness of the previous year slip away into the past and you see brand new days ahead full of completely mistakeless moments. Last year was pretty amazing for the most part. It definitely had it's dips though they didn't out weigh the highs. Now I am looking forward to 2013 and it's possibilities. :-)

We've packed a lot into the new year already! A church birthday party, the Secret Sister Banquet, a weekend trip to see my girlfriend, a photo shoot, and all of life's daily crazies. lol 

So! Happy New Year to ya again and may your 2013 be blessed!!! 

See ya next month! :-)

Autumn

Autumn is my favorite season. 

I love the colors, the sounds, the smells, the very air. It invigorates and energizes me. It gets me excited and ready to do anything. I love my walks even more this time of year. The whole season seems to clear my head and enable me to really think about stuff. I guess you could call me an Autumn junkie. lol One way or the other though, I love it. But, the turning of the season doesn't mean life slows down any. I'm still running around with everyday life plus additional activities. But I'm having a wonderful time in the midst of the chaos. A wonderful time enjoying the colors, sounds, smells, walks, and busyness because I get to do it all with the Lord by my side. He has made everything so beautiful and is making a beautiful thing out of my life one day at a time. I don't deserve His love and mercy yet I find myself the receiver of it each and every day. 
I haven't been on in awhile so I just wanted to drop you all a line to let you know that I'm still here. :-) I hope that you all are having a blessed Autumn as well!

PS The photo is actually from my phone from one of my walks on my favorite trail. :-)

Summer is here...

Or at least the busy part is! lol

Well, as you all can see I have failed miserably at the 365 posts. I think it's been a month today since my last one. And the days are only going to get busier. Thinking I'm going to give up for now. :-/ I will try to keep posting more often than I was before but I don't think it's going to be every day. lol It did help me get back to picking up my camera more often which is good and was part of the goal. I even took a specific 365 photo some days...just didn't get it transferred to the computer... lol Oh well. I tried! I and partially succeeded. And won't be actually giving up in that I will continue to post periodically thought it won't be every day of the year. lol Maybe I'll try again next year... :-)

Of course I can't leave you without posting a photo on this post so here ya go. :-P

81/366

Today the clouds were picture perfect! Of course by the time I got home and then by the time I remembered to take my camera outside to snap a photo they didn't look as good. Still pretty, but not as "perfect". Oh well.

This last week has been pretty insane. I missed two more days of blogging. Got me thinking, I can't imagine how it'll be once Summer hits! lol Guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. :-)

2/366

What I've been doing most of the day. :-)

This was my favorite quote in the whole book. "Truly, I have never seen a man better turned out than Colin Richmond." Love it!

1/366

For a couple of years now I've wanted to do a 365 blog collection (this year a 366 blog :-P) to encourage me to take more photos and to make me get my camera out every day and use it! But I always forgot until it was days into the new year. lol This year I actually remembered only two days in! lol! So since I actually did take a photo yesterday, maybe it's not the type of photo I would generally like to put up but it'll do. So here it is! The first post in my 366 collection! A day late.... :-)

A good excuse to take a photo and a great way to start out the year. We had 

one baptized at church last night. :-)

Here's to a full year of being able to get my hands on a computer that can hold  a connection long enough for me to blog ... every day! :-)

Yellow!

Okay, it's not that great quality but it seemed like a good excuse to blog ... since I haven't in FOR-EVER! lol I finally succumbed and joined the "taking pictures of myself in the bathroom mirror" club. lol I actually only did because that's the easiest place to take a picture of yourself on your phone! :-P Oh well. So here it is! Hi, from me, to you, and glad to know that you're still around even if I haven't been! :-) Thanks!

Just Poppin' in for a Second!

Hi! Remember me? I'm the one that invited you here not too long ago and then abandonded you! lol Still computerless at my house so I'm harking back to the old days when I would make the treck to the library once a week to use their free internet. :-) Ah...the good old days. lol Maybe, maybe not. I have to repeat though that I am actually really enjoying not being on the computer all of the time. lol It's a little hard to keep yourself off of it when it's right there to jump on every few minutes. I miss being in daily contact with some of my friends but that's about it. And most of the really important ones I'm still in contact with through other means. :-)

I have to say that as I continually type out a sentence or a paragraph and then delete it because sending it into cyber space might send anyone who reads it into major boredom...I'm realizing again that the blogging juices just aren't flowing the way they used to. lol So I guess I'll go ahead and close this...yet another failed attempt at a blog. Oh well. At least I succeeded in telling you that I'm still here, life has it's downs but also many ups (such as late night phone calls from far away friends...walks with my walking buddy in the cool of the moring...quiet time with my Lord....a good book...learning that I'm going to be an Aunty...and more :-) )....and that I'll probably be back again one of these days, hopefully with a more interesting post. :-) Until then! Praying life is well and blessed with all of you my readers (if there are any anymore :-P)!

PS Was going to add a photo to this blog to liven it up because, as a friend once said, "blogs are more fun with pictures..." but...I don't have my camera with me and blah blah blah...so I'm not going to. Maybe next time I'll be better orginized!

HA! :-P

Beggers Can't be Choosers

My mama always said that to me and it is so true. It's amazing how hard times make you more appreciative of whatever you can get. Right now that is computer time at the library because the mail computer I used at home is on the fritz (majorly). lol Hence why you all haven't heard from me in quite awhile and why most of you have probably forgotten about me. :-P
The funny thing though about being on a forced computer fast is, I've kind of enjoyed it. :-) While I love keeping up with everybody on FB, love my blogs (all 5 of them!), and love reading other peoples blogs, etc., it's also been nice having the extra free time at home to do ... whatever. Read a book, clean the kitchen, sleep... lol
Autumn is in the air and I am loving it. Back during Spring I spoke of my going back and forth between Autumn and Spring being my favorite season. I have to say, as the weather cools and the wind picks up and the Autumn smells begin to fill the air, I really think Autumn is my favorite time of the year. I love Spring and the "newness" in the air, but nothing beats the feel of an Autumn evening. The one unfortunate of the season is the memories it brings back. Let's just say I'm looking forward to making new one so that the old ones will stop haunting me. Still my favorite time of year though. ;-)
With more time on my hands, I've been reading more and now with the cooler weather I hope to be baking and cooking more. Yay! :-) Probably the best thing I've been picking up more often is my Bible. :-) What about you?

Back on the flip side, less computer time seems to have clogged up my creative juices so this blog isn't coming together very well. In an effort to remain in touch with the cyber world though I will post this anyway. Hope life is wonderful for you all out there! :-)

My Old, New Camera!

I looked into renting an SLR camera for the wedding I was doing last weekend and ended up renting this one from a friend. Then she sold it to me! So I am now the owner (OWNER! :-D) of an SLR!!! I have to admit, I have been a Nikon photographer for awhile now, but I am very thankful for this camera and will use it to it's full capacity and enjoy every moment of it until I can save up for a new, new camera. :-)

This is a picture of it from the internet.

It was really cool how the Lord worked it all out for me. He knew I'd been wanting one but wasn't seeing being able to afford one in the near future. So now I forgive my other friend who wouldn't send me her camera through the mail. Other wise I wouldn't have rented then bought this camera. :-P Just kidding!!!!!!! :-) 

I look forward to doing many posts in the future with amazing pictures in it thanks to my old, new camera. :-)

P.S. Yes, I already had a camera and yes, it was and is an amazing camera. But there are just some things that an SLR can do that a point-and-shoot aren't capable of. :-) If none of this made sense, go look it up. :-P

P.P.S. The amazing picture of my brother's sandwiches in the last post were taken with my old, new camera. :-)

Hello, my name is Sarah.

It's been so long I wasn't sure if you'd remember who I was so I thought I'd start by introducing myself. My name is Sarah, I "own" this blog, I love photography (among many other things), and I blog from time to time. We have met before but it's been quite awhile. You'll remember me soon....hopefully. 

Anyway, as I've done my best by way of a short a sweet introduction I'll get on with my blog as if everything was normal. :-) It has been forever since I blogged last! I've been watching the months pass and with each one I thought, "There's goes another blogless month." Then tonight I spent a wonderful hour and a half chatting on the phone with a good friend and she even mentioned that it had been awhile. Then (that's a lot of "thens"...) I discovered tonight that our wireless connection was back up! So, here I am! :-) By way of a "quickie blog" I'm just going to share with you a few of the "ornamental" photographs I took on Thanksgiving. We had a wonderful day of just us. Cooked, and bantered, and teased all day then had our big dinner just before 8 PM. It was a very pleasant day all around. :-)

This is the tablecloth that my sister bought Mama and the center piece that I put together. It was the first year we had a centerpiece and it was a lot of fun. Hey, it's the little things that count, right? :-)

Here's the table just set before we piled it with food. 

An "artistic" shot of the table. 

And the table laden with our bounty. Not all of it though. We also had a side table full of goodies. 

So, I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving surrounded by family and loved ones and I hope this is the first of many more frequent blogs. :-)

Whew!

I was right! With all that's been going on at our house, it's now been 3 weeks since the last time I posted on here!

We have officially turned out house upside down as we clean out every nook and cranny ... and some we didn't know we had. Finding a whole bunch of stuff that we put away for "next year" and now it's years later and we can't use it any more. Finding papers etc that we "needed" to keep but are now finding that we can trash them. Digging up memories, some happy some sad.

The boys are re-doing one of our bathrooms. They've completely gutted it ...

(in the process, found a huge wasps nest!)

and are hopefully soon in the process of putting walls back in it...and a sink...and a toilet...We really miss having two bathrooms!

I tried to do a garage sale last weekend with all of the stuff we've found throughout the house. Friday I got up, ran an errand, then just I got everything set up, it started to rain on my parade garage sale. Needless to say, I wasn't very happy but it was just a "few-minute-rain" so I wiped everything off and decided to give it a second shot. I ran my sister to work real quick (by now it's 10 A.M.) and as we're driving it starts to rain again. I think it was about that point that I decided to give up. So I decide we're going to get up bright and early Saturday and try try again! ....... I slept through my alarm. :-S (That's how busy we've been!) So! Ever the hopeful, I'm going to give it one more shot this weekend. We'll see what happens...

We're having a Memorial Day BBQ this monday which I am looking forward to. We've got a list of jobs we're hoping to get done by then. It'll be nice to hit our first "goal". I think it'll feel more like we're getting somewhere then.

Since the last time I blogged we had our Mother Daughter Banquet. It went well and I got a few cute pictures then ... 

such as the boys standing at

attention as our servers :-)

and on Mother's Day.

Nathanael had his first violin recital on Mother's Day. He did very well!!! It was so exciting!

And last night the church held Laura's Baby Shower. The night went fairly well (if you don't count the black out)...a few mis-haps, the most critical being, after taking a dozen or so pictures my batteries died! I really, really, REALLY hate that "Batteries are exausted" screen. But I did get a few before then.

Other than that, I haven't taken very many pictures lately. I'm telling you, we have been swamped!

Well, seeing as how I'm using up valuable time that I could be using to work on ... something back at the house, and how this is turning into a short novel, I guess I'd better run. I'll see you again one of these day! :-)

Random

I have been SO busy lately. And I know, we say that right? But I really mean it when I say busy. What makes it harder to get on the computer for me is that I don't have one at home. :-S So, it's whenever I can run to the library real quick...then plug in my camera...impatiently patiently wait for it to load...look through the hundreds few pictures to decide which one to blog (unless I already have an idea)...open it...and blog. I know, quite the process. :-P So I've begun to, when I actually am here, with my camera, save a handful of pictures and then when I stop in for just a second, I have a picture waiting for me to blog about. :-D Great system, right?

Anywho...this is one I grabbed real quick the day I went out with Nathan and Dillion for Senior pictures.

It intrigued me.

Unfortunantly, for my blog, the Summer is only going to get crazier and crazier. So, we'll see how often I actually get here. I will try to post photos of all of it as it happens! :-)

Running behind schedule...

Whew! Life has just been nuts! And not having a computer at home I can't just grab a minute here and there to blog real quick. So, not only am I running behind in my blog posting but the topic for today is "National Library Week"...which was April 11-17! lol! Oops!

Well...I actually did come to the library that week with the sole purpose of getting a few good pictures of our library and then blogging about it....only to have my camera flash the "Battery's Exausted" sign at me. Oy!

So, a little late and not as full as I was going to do originally, but here is my salute to our local Public Library. :-)

I am very thankful for our Library! We've been a "part" of our library nearly since the day we moved to town 15 years ago. Some of the ladies working here have watched me and my siblings grow up. Books, movies, music, and the Technology Center...I'm thankful for it all! :-D

Plug

So this is me kind of plugging a name out there for all you "home-made-stuff-lovers". :-)

This is the hat a friend of mine made and wore to our Watch Night Service at church. I enjoyed the picture as well as the hat and thought, "Hey, why not blog it?"

Whatcha think? :-)

*Snork*

That's the sound my brain is making right now as I attempt what

seems to be the impossible.

Blogging.

As it jerks, and snorts, and stops and starts, I just can't seem to get

the blog juices flowing. I'm at my first .......... see, I can't even come

up with the right word.

I scan the hundreds (yes, hundreds) of pictures I've taken since getting my new camera and see many good one but none of them stand up and say, "Blog about me!" Or if they do make a feeble attempt to do so, my brain says, "But what do I say.....?"

*sigh*

So I guess I'm on my way home now. I've got alot to do there. Thankfully things that don't take the part of my brain that writes blogs. Things like: Put my new skirt together, cut my dad's hair, clean the kitchen, figure out what I'm going to make for supper, dirty the kitchen again, and of course, all of the little odds and ends I have to do to get ready for church tomorrow. Maybe by the next time I'm here the "blog juices" will have begun to flow again.

Being a photography blog though, I have to leave you with atleast one photo to ponder on until I can post more. So, I leave you with a picture of my little friend. He too seems to be having a hard time remember what he's doing...either that or he's trying to figure out what on earth I'm doing...

So I was wondering....

Do you ever find yourself laughing at yourself when you're blogging? I do. Frequently. In fact, sometimes when I'm blogging I'm cracking myself up. I'll even go back at a later date and still laugh at what I wrote. Then I think...Does anyone else laugh at my ridiculousness??? Maybe...maybe not. But I guess if we were depending on the enjoyment of others, some of us would have ceased to blog a long time. That's the freedom of the internet, right? I can ramble all I want....and if I never entertain a single soul...it's ok. :-)

P.S. This is not a hint for those of you who have read but not commented. In fact, I don't want to know what you are thinking about my blogs. Therefore, please do not click on the link below that says "Comments".