Archive for the 'Photos' Category
Heather over at the Learning Umbrella tagged me for this quick little meme. It’s easy. Go to your 6th picture folder and find the 6th picture in there. Post it on your blog.
Here’s mine:
These oak leaves had seen better days, I guess. This was from a nature study we did about 18 months ago.
This meme is so quick and easy that I tag all of you. If you’re reading this, consider it a tag, and go get that picture. Let me know what you find.
Thanks, Heather.
is the unexpected one. The one that wasn’t supposed to happen, or if it was supposed to happen, it wasn’t supposed to amount to anything, but then it did.
Last night and today, we’ve had snow and ice and then rain – the kind that makes the day dreary because there’s no going out in it. And by the time you DO get to go out, it’s all turned to a pathetic, good for nothing slush. And we knew it was coming. The local news and the Weather Channel just couldn’t shut up about this storm. How dull it was, listening to them go on about it, knowing that it really wasn’t going to be such of a much, that all it would amount to was some extra work with a shovel. La-dee-da.
But, a week ago Monday was totally different. A week ago Monday was just supposed to be a slight chance of flurries. The newscasters barely gave it a minute. And Monday afternoon, we got a little flurry. The girls looked out the window and cheered.
“Don’t get too excited,” I said. “This isn’t supposed to last.”
They grumbled. But then the flurry just kept on flurrying. And flurrying. And flurrying. And by 3:30 I had to tell them we’d have to skip karate because I didn’t want to be driving in this. They wailed. But then I told them to get their snow gear on because we were going out into all that delicious snow. And the wails immediately ceased as they scrambled for their boots.
They’d been waiting a long time for a day like this. A day with the Good Kind Of Snow.
In fact, now that I think about it,
This was the first good snow they’ve been able to play in since we moved here two years ago.
I know this because I bought these red sleds for them for Christmas back in 2006, right before we moved.
And they never used them once. Until this Monday a week ago, when the snow we weren’t supposed to get turned into the best surprise ever. The whole time they were sledding, I kept hearing Etta James singing in my head: At Last….
So, it was funny the next day to hear that song played over and over again because that was the theme song for the President and First Lady’s inaugural dance. I suspect that if they had watched my daughters sledding down our little hill for the first time ever, they’d totally understand why I had that song stuck in my mind. They’ve got daughters, too. I think they’d get it.
But the best part about that day was the laughing. I laughed in a way I haven’t laughed in years. I laughed because I saw the joy light up their faces as the sleds picked up a little speed and they were sailing in the gorgeous snowy dusk and I saw in their eyes, in their excited smiles, that it was better than they ever even expected it could be. I laughed with them, and at one point, I’m pretty sure I was jumping up and down with excitement.
And then, the next day… THIS happened
and it was the icing on the cake. The best kind of icing. The kind you weren’t expecting, but turned out to be exactly what you wanted all along. The kind that was worth the wait.
Like much of the United States this weekend, we’ve been batting winter weather. It’s not as bad here as it is elsewhere, but it’s enough to keep us indoors and on each other’s nerves. I’ve got the kids doing yoga videos as much as I can until this ice melts enough for us to venture out and see what we can see.
The sun did come out, quite briefly, early this afternoon, only long enough for me to step outside alone with my camera for a few minutes. I snapped pictures until the cold wind drove me back indoors to where pre-Christmas chores awaited.
It’s dark and freezing now, and the kids are finally asleep, and now I’m sitting here looking at these pictures, and reliving that crisp, momentary dazzle from earlier today, and I find it’s better than the brightest, cheeriest Christmas lights.
Right now, sleet is rattling against the windows in my study. It reminds me of what it sounded like outside this afternoon, when the world was melting a bit and pitter-pattering down onto the ice-coated grass.
I don’t know when we’ll be able to get outside again, and I don’t know how many trees we’ll lose in this mess, but I’m still glad of a little ice storm now and then.
Call me crazy.
This is something the girls never really got to do in Colorado. It’s one of the little perks they’re starting to notice about living where there are lots of old trees. Leaf piles and the Jersey shore, not to mention the ‘Pump It Up’ that’s about to open down the road a piece pretty much seals the deal: the girls are happy living in Pennsylvania.
As for the leaves, RegularDad is now shopping for his self-proclaimed Christmas present: a riding mower with leaf vaccuum attachment. He spends lots of time at the John Deere website, and at least once a day we talk mowers. He thinks this bores me, and maybe it does a little, but he listened to me rave about dishwashers for quite a while last year, so now we’re even.
Sometimes, you can’t help feeling glad that you missed the shot. That you had the wrong lens. That the picture came out blurry.
Sometimes, the screwed up shot is a gift.
