one week from tonight

One week from tonight will be the night before my little {p}'s first day of school. He is going to be in Kindergarten... the start of something big.
So many thoughts are going through my head and my heart right now. I have enough faith in him to know that he will be okay. He is unbelievably smart. He is curious. He loves to learn. He is polite and compassionate.
The hardest thing, I think, is that I know all of these things about him. I am sending him to a place where he is not known. He is going to be one of many on that very first day of school. But {p} is not one of many. He is mine. And he is special.

One week from tonight, I will
not be sleeping.
One week from tonight, I will
be making sure that his clothes are just right.
One week from tonight, I will
be checking that backpack to make sure everything is in there.
One week from tonight, I will
be making a special lunch.
One week from tonight, I will
check all of the clocks so that we won't be late on Monday.
One week from tonight, I will
probably think of a million reasons why I should homeschool.
One week from tonight,
I will be praying...

that {p} doesn't cry
that {p} doesn't see me cry
that {p} will actually want to go back on the second day
that the hours on Monday speed by
and that God shows me how to start letting go,
because this is only
the beginning.

fish fever

{p} loves to fish. It seems that he inherited that from his daddy. But I think he inherited his fishing skills from me. I'm sure those of you who know about my ten pound bass will agree with that statement.

Here's his catch from today. He caught ALL of these, and his grandaddy didn't catch any!


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mastering the technique

of blowing bubbles:

gotta love the hat that keeps covering up {s}'s face!

oh no... my camera!

It figures. I actually crack open the manual, figure some stuff out, and something crazy happens to my camera. I don't know what might be going on, but I can only take about three pictures before it shows a dead battery.

I tried my dad's Kodak EasyShare tonight. I didn't like anything about the automatic settings. They are hard to deal with and there isn't a very big aperture range. And, after I loaded everything, I realized the photos are date stamped.

Big sigh.

Here are a few that turned out okay.

a little time outside

Scott Adams, in The Dilbert Principle, said,

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes.

Art is knowing which ones to keep."

How true! It definitely applies to photography. You've got to be willing to take chances, to experiment. I've deleted so many pictures. Black ones, blurry ones, white ones. But, I'd gladly make one hundred mistakes to have one photo that I love. I made a lot of mistakes outside this weekend, but I kept some. And those make it worth it!

A few macro shots:

Tomatoes from my parents' garden:

{p} with a moth. He loves looking for and catching bugs. The first shot was f 2.8. The second was f 5, I think. The others are just examples of {p} on the prowl for more bugs.
















And finally, the inside of a bluebird house.

practice, practice, practice

I'm having fun practicing, so that's a good thing. I'm not having fun with shots that do not turn out the way that I expect them to. The lowest F-stop setting on my camera is 2.8. I would expect to get a little background blur with that, but in most pictures, it isn't as much as I hoped for. Let's see... little background blur... would that mean a greater depth of field? Or lower depth of field? Whichever it is, I know what I want, but I'm not always getting it. And sometimes I'm getting a little blur that I don't expect. Where is it coming from?

I'm sharing a few pictures that I took this evening. Some are a little blurry, some are darker than I wanted. But, I enjoy knowing that I controlled the technical aspects of the shots.

This is my favorite. It's a sedum that was my grandmother's.

I had to get in the grass for this mushroom.

I like how the sedum leaves are framing the clover in the middle.

At {p}'s request... picture of his snapdragons. Bless his heart. He said, "You're starting to get good at taking pictures!"

I like how the light coming through the leaves looks almost symmetrical. This was taken standing under a sunflower.

{s} trying a tomato in the garden

Horrible background, but he wasn't interested in moving.

I like the vibrant colors here.

Too dark, but I stuck it in here anyway.

a class experiment

Tonight we went into a neighboring classroom and experimented with using some manual settings on some random junk. Very few of mine turned out the way that I hoped, but here are some that I'm willing to share:




this was my favorite


a pencil eater


hula hoops against a mirror


hula hoops against a mirror... higher f-stop


this had the potential to be a neat photo, but it is darker than I wanted

pics from the park

I took a few pictures at the park today, but I'm not crazy about any of them. It was really overcast, so instead of using any flash I played with aperture settings a bit. I still can't get focal length like I want it... going to have to do some more reading on that.


Here are three:




a little blurry



a little dark





blurry, but hilarious!

friday night fun

Friday night, when I should have been sleeping, I decided to start reading my camera manual. I experimented a bit with aperture, shutter speed, and the macro setting. I didn't want to get out of bed, so I snapped these photos of things on my nightstand. Taking pictures of the lamp, in a dark room, was a great way to figure out just what changing the aperture setting could do. And I found out that I love macro!

So, here are a few that I liked:



remote

lamp base, shooting toward shade






light and shadows on wall






books

another reason to love fried okra

Love from a five year old is a funny thing. Most certainly, it is unconditional. But occasionally there are certain conditions under which that love can shrink or grow a bit. I can't remember exactly what the situation was, but the other day {p} casually mentioned that he loved his daddy this much

and he loved me this much

.

Yeah. He loved his daddy a whole foot, and me about an inch. Maybe two. So anyway, last night I cooked {p} some fried okra***.

And now he loves me this much.

I'll take it!

****just want to add that the link above does NOT reflect a picture of the fried okra that I cooked. I am sure that mine was much more appetizing.****