Catchin' Up

I have been a very negligent blogger lately. I used to be a scrapbooker, then I became a digital scrapbooker and then I became a blogger and gave up scrapbooking completely. And now I've been sucked into Facebook - it's where I post daily photos and little snippets about our lives. But the problem with Facebook is that I can't print it and keep it in our home. So I need to either go back to scrapbooking or keep up better on my blog. The disadvantage of the digital age - it is sometimes intangible.

Also, Brynn really likes to read my blog and is always getting after me about my lack of recent blogging. So here's a little catch up post just for you, Sis.

I just realized that I Facebooked about Brynn's birthday, but never blogged about it. We have a tradition in our family that we celebrate birthdays with friends one year and the next year with family. This was our family year and the kids all got to pick something fun to do as a family. One of the things Brynn wanted to do was decorate her own cake.

She picked the colors and decorated it all by herself, I thought it was really pretty.

Something that Brynn's been up to lately is volleyball.  Betty has been teaching a volleyball camp to the 5th and 6th grade girls and they had their game on Friday. It was a very short game, but we were proud of her and are excited that she is liking volleyball so much.

Jenna and Dallin came to watch Brynn's game and he made her this poster:

How sweet is that?! He's a good guy, that Dallin.

Fred, the best cat in the world

For about a year, Fred has had a funny ear. Most of the time it's fine, but every so often, he holds his left ear flat and shakes it and scratches at it. He'll do that for a few hours and then he's totally fine again. I've never taken him to the vet because it never bothers him for long and it's a bit tricky to get a vet appointment, and frankly, it's not all that fun or all that easy to take a cat to the vet.  But the other day he was having trouble again and I decided it was time. Fortunately, I am very blessed to work at the nation's largest animal sanctuary and one of the best perks of working there is that we have a great clinic and 4 excellent vets who will see our personal animals. It is a little hard to get appointments though, and the only thing they had for a while was today, a Sunday. I took it rather than waiting for several weeks, I normally wouldn't do something like that on a Sunday. Also, Fred got in a fight a few days ago and has been pretty gimpy and has a puncture wound on his chest that I thought might ought to get looked at.

Well, to make a long story short, we loaded Fred up and took him - complaining a little - down to the sanctuary and saw the new vet, Dr. Brooke. When we got there, she asked his name and I said, "He usually goes by "Fred", but his whole name is "Fred-the-best-cat-in-the-world". She laughed, but after she finished examining him, I think she realized that it was true. She cleaned his ears, shaved around his wound, scoped his ears, palpated his sore leg and examined him all over and he never, ever offered to scratch or bite.  He didn't even try to get away!  What an extraordinarily good cat!

So it turns out that he does have a bacterial and yeast infection in both ears and has to have drops in them twice a day for a week.

Brynn and Luke came with, they like Fred pretty well.  (This is the reason I carry a point and shoot camera in my purse - you just never know when you might want to take a photo.)



Brynn took this photo of Fred the other day and I thought it was cute. What a good boy.



So where do you find good cats like this one? At the dump, of course.

How Pinteresting!

First there was email, then blogging, then Facebook and Twitter. Now?

Pinterest.

I know I'm probably one of the last people to get on board, but I gotta admit, Pinterest is pretty cool. For anyone who doesn't know about Pinterest, it's a virtual pinboard where you can snag things off the web and keep track of them in collections.  I've always collected ideas off the internet, but this way is a whole lot easier. And you can browse the Pinterest boards for amazing ideas and things that other people have already found.

I really need to do some painting, remodeling, and updating around here, but I've been so busy and so overwhelmed that I've just ignored all of the projects that need to be done. But my tolerance level is reaching critical mass and it's time to get in gear. In the search for inspiration, Pinterest is an amazing source. I feel inspired.

(Guess where I found that?)

How do you feel about housework?

I often blog about a single subject, which is fine. But since this blog is also my own personal journal/family history, I sometimes think I should blog about a typical day and even just what's on my mind. Today is Wednesday which is the day after Tuesday, which means it's the day after the day I work at the Sanctuary. Which means it's a catch up day. Editing, bill paying, mailing, shopping, blogging and HOUSEWORK. Ok, I've never done it before, but I'm gonna ramble on a little about housework.
 
Ever-present, never-ending housework. I've given a lot of thought to this subject over the 14+ years that I've been married and primarily in charge of keeping the house, and gone through many stages of feelings about it: denial, anger, acceptance, ambivalence, resentment, anger, satisfaction, denial.... etc. I've also come to believe, that while organizational skills and housekeeping skills can be learned and improved upon, being a truly excellent housekeeper is an innate characteristics and you either got it or - as in my case - you don't got it.

I have DEFINITELY learned to be more organized over the years and I really do enjoy a clean house. But it just always seems like there are more worthwhile things to do with my time.

Oh well, I'll keep working on it. And I have a theory - everyone has a different tolerance point for an  acceptable level of clean. I can ignore a certain amount of clutter, dishes and dirty floors and then all of a sudden, I've hit my limit. I have friends who can't stand the tiniest bit of clutter, or the minutest amount of dirt, but then I also have friends who can tolerate years worth of clutter piles and weeks worth of food crusted on dirty dishes. I would have to say, on a slob scale from 1 to 10 (1 being OCD Buckingham palace clean and 10 being "Hoarders") I'm somewhere around a 4 - the cleanest my house ever is: 2, the messiest: 6 - 6 is my absolute max tolerance level. The average is somewhere around a 4.  Except for the dishes and laundry, which I keep up on pretty well, I would have to say my overall style of housekeeping is "let it build up- while I work, edit, do horse stuff, etc. - until  I can't stand it anymore and then go on a big cleaning/purging binge" or, "someone's coming to stay so freak out at the kids and get in a housework bootcamp workout".

As I was typing this, I took a look at my desk and realized that the state of my desk is pretty indicative of the overall state of my life.

A whole bunch of "to-dos" and miscellaneous multi-tasking. Funny.

I'm glad I blogged about this stuff - it's cathartic.

How do you feel about housework? What's your cleaning style?

Captain America and His Girl

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that

MY BABY SISTER IS GETTING MARRIED.

I'm a little bit excited, can you tell? She is one of my favorite people in the world and she found a GREAT guy and I'm just so happy for her.

In March, she moved to Austin Texas. She had been living pretty close to us and we were sad when she decided to move that far away. We didn't know the reason at the time - heck, I don't even think she knew the reason. But now we know, and that reason looks a little like this:



She met him online soon after she moved out there and they are getting married in November. They came out here a couple of weeks ago and we got to meet him and I got to take their engagement pictures. So fun.

He used to be a captain in the army, so we call him Captain America. And the Marvel Captain America's girlfriend's name is Sharon Carter - which is my sister's name! :)

And they are really great together!

He's a successful business owner, a pilot with his own plane, has multiple degrees, and is a certified journeyman electrician in 16 states. Oh, and he also just won a state-wide wrestling competition. 

Marty says, "Oh great, another overachiever", like our other brother-in-law, the FBI director. (who also speaks fluent spanish, has 2 degrees including an MBA and went to BYU on a dual baseball and vocal scholarship.)

But he would have to be pretty great to be good enough for our sister. And the most important thing is that he is a wonderful person, who loves her, and is a faithful member of our church.

 Isn't she purty?! That is her natural hair color!

And even though this means she's never moving back, I suppose we can let her go to live with Captain America.

Looking Back - Window Light

I've been super-duper-whooper busy with photo shoots this summer. Which is great, but along with photo shoots comes a lot of photo editing and it takes up so much of my time that I don't have time for much else that I'd like to do. I co-taught a photography workshop this spring and we set up a Facebook group for our workshop attendees with weekly assignments. Our last assignment was window light and the ladies were struggling with it a little bit so I bribed Brynn to sit for me and did a little window light session with her the other day do demonstrate some techniques for the ladies.

As I was looking through the photos, I was reminded of the very first time I attempted to do window light portraits. And, of course, Brynn was my model back then too.

 

 She was so stinkin' cute! It was fun to look back at these and reminisce a little. That first window light session was a real landmark for me. It was the first time I'd ever taken photos that I was really happy with and it started me on my photography journey. Somedays  I feel as though photography has taken over my life - it has become the tail wagging the dog. But mostly I'm so grateful to have beautiful pictures of my children and able to give other people beautiful pictures of theirs. 

This little beauty is Jenna's little Allison - growing up and so much fun. She posed for me for mini marshmallows while I was tending her the other day.

  

  I do love window light, I love all the curves and shadows and highlights. Most of all I love how it puts such pretty catchlights in the eyes. And I really do love my camera.

My Little County Fair Participants

We live in a little bitty town and our whole entire county only has about 6000 people living in it. That means, of course, that our county fair is very home-towney, accessible and lots of fun. Every year we enter something that the kids have made and I always enter some of my own photos.

I actually remembered to take photos of some of their entries this year:

 (Brynn won a sweepstakes ribbon for her cool watercolor painting.)

Luke came up with the idea to put in a helicopter on his own, made it all by himself and then painted it with a little help from his big brother.  The rotors twirl really well!

A couple of years ago, Jaxon came up with his own comic strip in which the characters are all insects. It's called The Buggy Backyard. I'm continually amazed at the ideas he is able to come up with. He can sit down and come up with cartoon after cartoon and most of them are really funny. He usually just draws them in pencil - we have them all over the place. I talked him into putting one down in ink for the fair and it won a blue ribbon. 

Isn't that great?! 

 
  He's so good at expressions and body language.

In other news.... My lovely little sister Sharon is getting married! I will put up another post about her and her fiance, but for now I'll show this one photo that I entered in the fair.

I love small town living, I grew up in cities, but always knew I was a small town girl. I love the parades, the town dinners and the county fair. We're so blessed.