yes it is a good evening

and a fine evening it is.
a movie has ended as i listen to some type of celtic music while the credits roll, the sounds slightly distorted and distant coming from the hand held speaker of a control box dangling from the side rail of a hospital bed. my 11 year old son is sleeping quite comfortably with the IV tubing trailing across his bed, he has become quite accustomed to it treating it like

nothing more than shoestrings that are usually precariously in wait to trip him up.

i would love to be able to light up a cig right now as i settle in to write a bit, unfortunately Children's Hospital personnel might kick my azzz...lol. funny how time seems to become distorted in a mere two days when you are basically isolated into just one room and your excursions out are to find your way through a maze of halls and elevators searching for food.

no i have not resorted to stealing left overs from other patients trays, fortunately the cafeteria not only has a great menu, but super prices that even i can afford. it costs me less to get a great meal that i can never finish, cuz it's more food than i am used to in one sitting, than it costs for me to buy a value meal at a fast food place that always sends me running for the nearest facility or side of the road in a matter of 20 minutes...lol.

( yes that sounds hilarious i admit i laugh about it also, but when the moment of distress hits and your guts are rolling, sickening sweet naseau overcomes your senses, a hot sweat breaks out over your forehead and the back of your neck...i don't care where i'm at, swerve the wheel and screech the breaks...i'd rather take my chances of someone seeing my butt cheeks than have a prize trophy in my drawers...lol...)

and on that note we have had to wait three days for my son to finally give up one of his own sculptures to be submitted for various lab tests. one of the doctors came in today and asked if he had "pooped" yet, at that time the answer was no and my further comment was," too bad we can't just squeeze it out of him"...well lo and behold later on today he was happily aiming his prize in the container they had positioned on the porcelain throne.

so far our good fellow has been in isolation and has fared pretty darn well with dvd's and vhs movies, a game cube and computer with internet access all made available to him. he loved being able to call room service and order his lunch of vegetable broth and fruit punch once he got the okay from the Dr. to be on a clear liquid diet. later on in the afternoon he called room service for a glass of lemonade, he smiled so contently as he took the first sip through his straw and said " ahhh, that is the best lemonade i have ever had."

other than the new clear liquid menu today, he has been dining on the solutions provided by his IV bags, a medication for his stomach acids, a new medication to dissolve gall stones, and vitamin K. tomorrow we will be looking forward to another ultra sound, a possible MRI and of course the daily selection of blood tests that he has been experiencing over the past week.

the boy has gotten pretty darn good at aiming his pee into the handheld urinal without getting any sprinkles or splatters all over the floor, walls, or toilet seat. hmmmm, maybe we will take that home with us and eliminate some of that extra bathroom scrubbing that seems inevitable with boys in the house, then again maybe not, he has already gotten into the required habit of leaving it to sit off to the side for someone else to empty it. Darn, it was a good idea for a second...lol.

i will have to post a photo later on of Shade during his stay, we can't load my camera card on the system here, a little issue about "authorization" and "installing new hardware" :)

(aha i have found a computer somewhere else in the hospital to manuever some pics)

WOW a real annual update!

WOW,

it has been a whole year since i have been in here to dance around on the pages and leave tidbits of my life...lol

i guess that is testimony as to the overwhelming demand on one individual when they are the mom and the fulltime college student :)

at least one of the demands has been eliminated.

haaaa....i am still "the mom" and now i am also a grand-mom, with the accomplished associate degree of applied science in Digital Media Design Technology. now please don't ask me what i have learned because i sure can't spout it off at the tip of a hat, but let me sit down and get creative, i can better show by doing ...lol...

in looking over my last post a year ago, i had left things in the air with the contest i had entered. well that photo didn't make it in the selection process, but another one i had submitted did :)

out of over 4,000 entries worldwide only 200 were chosen to be in the finalists, and a piece i had titled "kelly" was chosen. i didn't receive an honorable mention or any of the higher awards but i did get a very nice certificate and my work published in the hard bound issue of Photographers Forum Best of College Photography Annual 2008. that was an awesome feeling of achievement for me.

"Kelly"

since then i have had a few other pieces of my work chosen to be published in a couple of other books, New Worlds in Digital Media Design and Photography Laureates Best of 2008 Photography Anthology... too cool.

since my graduation i have not become famous and rich, i am more on the level of the starving artist...lol...

but the things i have already done and been a part of could never be experienced based on financial status anyway... they had to be the right time the right place, and that my friends is fate.

what i have gleaned thus far as to my own personal growth as an individual and as an aspiring photojournalist could not be attained any other way than by the drive and the passion i have to capture the moment.

i must express my deep appreciation for a very special friend that has had an undaunted faith in me even when i was unsure of myself, thank you Val ~ kisses!

Photo Contest Entry

ahhhh.... here we are with a piece of my photography that i decided to enter into the 28th Annual College Photo Contest that is promoted by Photographer's Forum Magazine and Nikon.
the grand prizes are $1,000 grant plus a Nikon D80 digital SLR camera and lens system.
there will be one grand prize awarded for best color and one for best black&white. there are progressive awards according to 2nd place, 3rd place, 4th place and of course honorable mention. there will be 100 honorable mentions.

i had done this particular photo using available outside light, and had decided i wanted to experiment with over exposure and converting it to black & white hopefully picking up rich variances in the gradients from all the blacks to white.

one of my great challenges was to disassociate myself from the natural connection you feel with your children when photographing them. not just any snap shot would do. i had to find a way to tell a story with my photography, and my son happened to be the available model.

we went to the local walking paths of our park area and i looked for the ways the light was showing on different surfaces and areas. i found this lighting shining on the old stone walls of a historical lock for canal boats and fell in love with the way the vines were clinging in the cracks and the way the shadows were going into a dark gradient where the light wasn't reaching. the leaves around on the ground i decided would add a great texture of gradients. so i just happened to be carrying a white bucket with us (chuckle always be prepared)...and i set it upside down on the ground by the wall...
i then had xavier sit on the bucket and i positioned him the way i wanted him to be kind of in a wondering or thinking pose for a kid by himself on a bucket. i wanted him barefoot to reach a deeper feeling in the photo.

this was a one shot deal i didn't take any other shots of this pose like i do others. i did one and just knew that was it.

when i presented it in my photography class my fellow classmates were very impressed and my instructor liked it so much that she told me she wanted a print of this particualr piece.
i was amazed that it got such a response because my fellow classmates are amazing photographers, and their work just blows me away when i see them.

one girl in my class said that it looks like art that you would see on anyones wall, not just on your wall because it is family.

i was also told that it is very moving. so with all of the individual responses that this photo got i knew i had captured something that can move anybody and not look like just a photo of someones kid.

my instructor told me that i had definitely achieved one of the hardest things of disassociating myself from the subject emotionally in my photography and that i was also successful in my creation using over exposure.

so hopefully if i can earn an honorable mention in the contest, i think i would just cry with
a humble heart .

"Boots and Fish"

two young fellows on the slide and one of them happened to have one of those inevitable moments that just seem to happen with boys. can you guess which one had the nut-crunching experience?...lol.


ahhhh, yes why is it we find humor in the pain of others? probably because it is friggin' funny when we see it happen...lol...

now on another note of mention i would like you to take notice of the young boy in the blue and white striped shirt laughing his azzzz off as i tell you the next portion of this post.

this boy is laughing most of the time. he will burst out in laughter at just about anything he sees or hears. he finds his cousins ( the mini-crew) absolutely hilarious in their everyday normal routine antics around the house and in our family. i haven't heard this fellow be very serious about anything . and that is where i was taken off gaurd by something he said that he was very serious about in a conversation with raine.

as we were traveling in the van (as usual)... i have to add something else here, it seems the kids have lots to say while we are bopping about from one place to another, probably because they are in an enclosed area and have no other distractions thus they are forced to converse with eachother (chuckle)

on to the story...

Reinn was telling me about how he got to go fishing every morning for 3 weeks, 7 days a week in those 3 weeks. and Raine got in on the conversation so it switched to the two of them while i listened. he told her he got to go at 6:00 a.m. every morning for 3 weeks 7 days a week and how he caught a fish. well Raine said "that's stupid". Reinn didn't realize that Raine thought it was stupid at how early he got up and how long he went before he caught a fish. very seriously Reinn replied " no, you can really catch things, a boot or a fish."

that was my turn to have a moment of laughter.

"How in the H-n-F did you get in there?!"

well let's see here, the usual circus around this part of the world with my mini-crew. a couple of weeks ago i was doing a photo shoot with the crew as my guinea pigs. raine and sage were great posing for me, but shade is so antsy most of the time it is very difficult to get him to sit still for me when i need to get him just how i want him.

soooo, i put him in charge of my lighting bounce board as my assistant. of course even that particular high position of responsibility caused him to also lose interest and he decided to explore other avenues of interest while i continued with total engrossment of my shoot with sage and raine.

although i was able to get shade to sit for me a little bit before i started with raine and sage, and it was easier then because i told them to just talk to eachother after i positioned them the way i wanted them..... now that actually worked better instead of trying to have him sit completely still and quiet.

now on to our story that took place after this particular photo. i was doing my shoots with raine and sage, just loving what i was getting. i didn't feel it pertinent to keep my "third eye" tuned in on shade since he is 10 now, and a big enough fellow to not just wander off to destinations unknown...lol.

well now... or so i thought.

as i remove my camera from my tripod and raine and sage climb down from the stone structure i had them posing on, i realize that shade isn't around anywhere for me to even catch a glimpse of, so i say in the way that mothers seem to do out loud but actually in thought to themselves, "Where's Shade?"

sage and raine answer in unison " he's in the tree!"

i am thinking oh crap! how in the hell did he climb one of those trees? they are huge and the branches are at least 15 feet above the ground. so i am looking up in the trees to see where my big enough 10 year old fellow could possibly be precariously perched.

then sage and raine say one after the other " No Mom...He's In The Tree!..."

i am thinking what the hell? and then i SAW HIM... IN THE TREE!

"holy shyte!" instantaneous thughts ran through my mind in the matter of a split second... oh my gawd! the fire department will have to cut down the tree to get him out!... but i simply asked "how the H-n-F did you get in there?"
shade's soft spoken reply, " i don't know."



(( no worries mom's, he climbed right out with no problem ))

damn it jaime tagged me...chuckle

here is jaime's younger brother, shade (yes he is also my son...lol). he loves his saxophone and carries it around with him all over the house and yard playing his music scales with his own flourish of style.

i took a little peek in jaime's blog and discovered she had tagged me with a little ditty of fun. unfortunately i am supposed to tag 5 other people after i post the tagging... ahem, i don't know 5 people in here....lmao...

but i will post it just the same in the spirit of the moment.

just for you jaime, i love you!

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet, current car)

Tinky towne&country

2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (favorite ice cream, favorite cookie) pistacchio fudge stripe...(ok this sounds like an underwear accident...lol)

3. YOUR FLY “GUY/GIRL” NAME: (first initial first name, first 3 letters last name) B-Lew.

4.YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal) Aqua cat....(haaa i just thought of a james bond movie Octopussy)

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born) Jean Ricelake.

6.YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (first 3 letters last name, first 2 letters first name) Lewba...(sounds like a hocker someone coughs up...lmao)

7. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite drink and add” the”) The Peach Zinfandel.

8. NASCAR NAME: (first names of your grandfathers) Betz Frederick.

9.STRIPPER NAME: (favorite perfume, favorite candy) Longing Peppermint.

10. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s and father’s middle names) Ann Paul.

~ ~ ~ * ~ * ~

that's all folks

"no raine i just farted"

all right first off before i forget ,

i had the mini-crew and aunt patti over at val's for a little visit. the boys shot upstairs to play with brayden, but not until after shade had played a short solo on the saxophone.

raine stayed around downstairs with the

"women folk".

ahhh well through the course of our visit like any other visits at other peoples houses, someone usually has to use the bathroom...and we did.

now we had a fantastic time catching up on things and making plans for brayden to visit us next weekend, the minutes passed quickly into a couple of hours and it was time to head

back home.

during our ride home, we were about 10 miles out of town when raine all of a sudden says "ooohh i think i just smelled vals bathroom in here." and then shade said "no raine i just farted. "

well good gawd i just about lost it on the sharp curve choking and laughing my azzzz off at that one.... lmao.

the mini-crew had a surprise not too long ago when i came home from a long day at classes, they knew we were going to have pizza for dinner which is a luxury at our house. when i parked in the drive the kids came running out yelling "pizza! pizza!"

but didn't see me carrying any out of the vehicle.

they wanted to know if we were going to town to get it and i told them "no, i'm having it delivered" they were surprised as to how i could work that one out because we live in an area that is too remote for deliveries. it was probably a time span of about 20 minutes after i had gotten home and the mini-crew was sitting in the living room waiting patiently, when i saw someone walking on the porch carrying pizzas... they hadn't noticed at first and i said

"pizza's here!" they ran to open the door and were surprised by josh and jaime, hannah

and pizza!

it was definitely one of the best family dinners we have had for quite awhile.

now just in case you may be wondering who the photo is of, that is jaimes little sister. i had a photo shoot assignment for the weekend and this is one of my favorites i fell in love with. two gorgeous daughters, jaime and seraine. i am excited to have a chance to photograph hannah as she grows up :)

smiles to all as i sign off for the evening :)