Thursday Morning in Photos

Lately I have noticed that I have posted very few photos here on my blog ...

I have not done anything exciting, or noteworthy, or photographable for so long I have sort of fallen in a rut of just rambling in my posts. Thing is - random rants are rather hard to capture on ... well I was going to say 'film' and "capture on a memory card" just doesn't sound right - so I will say that random rants are rather hard to capture on camera.

That fact that the last set of photos I posted here was of a syringe, most with the needle embedded in my thigh makes me feel that I just might be in a photographic rut or at least not making wise choices of what photos I should be sharing here. In fact - 'idiot' comes to mind when I scroll back and look at the last 3 or 4 posts.

I woke up at 2:00 am this morning, and by 3:00 am I was certain my slumber for the evening was over so I did what I normally do and came to my desk to play with Photoshop. I was using old photographs, of course, and a sense of yearning to go off adventuring somewhere exotic with my cameras hit me HARD.

I am not entirely sure when any sort of ‘adventuring’ is going to happen again – be it exotic or not. I have nothing scheduled for as far as they eye can see and I am starting to feel trapped. Super frustrated that in the past four months I have had to cancel two trips that were going to be ‘exotic photography adventures’.

And there I go … all ranting on by blog again. Sorry – y’all, I am sure that this is just SUPER FASCINATING to you! I will stop.

I did not plan on taking photos at all today, but when I got caught in a torrential downpour on the way to my doctors appointment, I remembered that I like photos taken out a rain covered window. In the Facebook Album I uploaded an hour ago I mentioned the reason I like to take photos out of a rain soaked windshield and called my reason for liking these photos “Gump’ish” – since you never know what you are going to get …

So, like the idiot that I am, I threw caution to the wind on my way home, held my camera in one hand, steered with the other and stopped my wipers (shhhh, don’t tell – and only for moments at a time for a more blurry photo). Seriously tapped into my adrenaline reserves when, as I was recklessly zooming down the freeway at the speed limit (yes, that seems un-‘idiot-like’ except for that torrential downpour and no wipers wiping thing) snapping a few photos, wiping my window, snapping photos, wiping my window – when out of nowhere (my wiper blades had just wiped so, although I was being an idiot by turning them off every now and then for a few seconds – that did not factor into my inability to see in this instance) a disabled car, a police car (WITHOUT A SINGLE FLASHING LIGHT GOING) and a tow truck appeared on the right shoulder and I was approaching the group FAST. They were not entirely off the freeway and on the shoulder. The disabled car hung over about 2 feet into the slow lane and also had no lights flashing. Add to that two men either totally INSANE or at least both more of an idiot than me by standing to the left of the disabled car – plonking them about in the middle of the slow lane.

They seemed oblivious to the cars whizzing by. As I said – I was approaching fast and with just two lanes on the freeway – I had only one lane to work with. There were three cars in the other lane - one directly across from me, and two behind it. I had about two or three seconds to do whatever I was going to do to avoid killing two idiots and myself if I hit the disabled car. In that split second that I had to make a decision - realized I had only one choice – start moving left and hope like hell the driver over there could see the dilemma and also move left – onto the left shoulder. I decided sideswiping the car to the left of my Tahoe was much more preferable to smashing into two men and a stationary car. I don’t know how close I got to the car in the left lane, I don’t know if it moved at all, but I got my Tahoe over far enough to the left that I was straddling the two lanes and missed the cluster on the right.

OH


MY



GOODNESS!


After searching about the car for a bit, I finally found my heart and put it back. I believe that that shakes in my hands (7 hours later) are me still working my way down from that adrenalin high.

Amazingly, my camera was in the front passenger seat, unscathed - even though I have no idea when or how it got there …

Funny – after that I decided that I would just drive and not multitask my way to the pharmacy! After getting my prescriptions, I had calmed a bit and was not on a freeway the rest of the way home – so I ever so cautiously took some more pics to complete my ‘drive home’ set:

*** Home! In one piece! ***

While at Walgreen's waiting for my prescriptions to be filled, I ran across the MOST ADORABLE teeny weeny plants! I couldn't resit! I am certain that I will kill them in no time at all, but until then ... I believe they are going to make me deliriously happy! I simply LOVE, LOVE, LOVE all things miniature - I believe it is encoded in my DNA. I cannot help but fall in love with anything that is of a scale 1:12 or smaller (ie 1:24, 1:48).

When I was ten or eleven I went with my parents of a tour of Washington DC, New York, Nauvoo, etc. One day we were at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and I stumbled across a dollhouse - the COOLEST dollhouse ever! I was absolutely fascinated and stood in front of it looking at all its rooms for the entire time my family was at the museum ... and it was clearly not enough time to take it all in!

Every now and again my mom or day wandered by to see if I was still there - and then when it was time to go, sadly taking one last longing look. It was marvelous and so detailed! I remember on the desk in the office there was a quill pen, an ink pot and a piece of paper - with other things, of course - but I was so fascinated that the letter on the desk had itty bitty writing on it! It was half written.

I have always thought that it would be cool to make dollhouses - but I realized after purchasing a half dozen kits for furniture sometime in my Junior High school days - and finally donating them two years ago - still unmade - that I don't really want to make dollhouses - I just want to look at them! SERIOUSLY love anything tiny. So I could not leave without some babies! See them? They are perched atop what I have, in the past, referred to as my 'Girly Pile' - usually there is an Aveda lotion on the top:

See ... ADORABLE!!!

But, since my lotion lives perched atop my Girly Pile, and it is not really a good place for things containing dirt and water - I placed them on one of my beautiful sandstone coasters ... with an old buddy of mine (speaking of tiny things):

Have I mentioned that I love frogs? My sister found this somewhere and thought of me. It is THE MOST wonderful gift I have received from her! A twofer: a frog AND a miniature:

Oh! But wait! What is this? It opens and inside are three ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE miniature crayons! Now THIS is a fun froggy!

Hmmmm, it just occurred to me that I never named him. I will have to fix that sometime in the future ... (BABY CRAYONS! Seriously - how COOL is this guy?)

So, maybe my Miniature Land will live next to my Girly Pile ...

Oh - and since the morning is not over and I have not introduced you to it - behind my Miniature Land is a wooden plant holder ... see it?

When the kids were little, we were visiting my parents in Tempe, Arizona and I saw this plant holder and loved it! Mom told me that she had made it at a Relief Society night. Hers was made out of pine and not finished - but I loved the style, so Gary took the plans for laying out the wood pieces that she had kept.

He cut all the pieces out of oak scraps and then it became a family affair ...

Ryan and Jessie were given sandpaper and 'helped' ...

We rarely have some sort of project where Jessie can really help - and she really did help with this!

Gary lay it out, glued it together and finished it - but I believe that it is really the only thing we have made as a Family (oops - I forgot - those wooden Soldier ornaments still standing at attention in that gold makeup train case waiting for the next invasion were a family affair also, but not nearly as pretty)

It started to fall apart months ago and I was sad, thinking 'this is it, my beautiful plant holder is dead' when Gary took it to the garage and put it back together again! I really, really like it and it is all the more special since Ryan and Jessie helped to make it - so I am glad it is still around. I had decided I needed to make a blog post about it since I was ecstatic that it was not dead ... and now I have!

So ... that was my morning. I believe I really did get home around 10:00 or 11:00 this morning. Did a few chores, then sat down at the computer to see my morning photos, make a Facebook album and write this post.

I just looked up at my clock.

It is 5:00pm!?!?!?





Seriously?



When did that happen?