Hoarders could be filmed in my car

I think everyone has the same reaction when they watch Hoarders: it’s a train wreck that you’re horrified by, yet you can’t manage to turn your head.

This was our car last week:

Please don’t gasp too loudly, I’m baring my soul here. It does make me sick though. There’s literally crap everywhere. There were runts in the seat belt wells. There’s even one right there on the seat waiting for a kid to sit on it. How old is that chocolate milk container? Naked Ken. No words. The four wheels of the car never left the ground. I promise.

Two points in my defense:

1. We were on a trip. We do not live this way. The front seats of the car look nothing like this. The amount of mess in the car is inversely proportional to one’s age.
2. There are school books in there! Bottom right corner! The girls actually did school each morning. I guess that was before they opened their candy and shook it at each other and then started throwing things.

Need another look? Overhead:

OMG.

At the end of the trip Du was having to lift Ashlyn out of her seat and put her back in when we made a stop. And it wasn’t like it took the whole trip for the girls to trash the back seat. This is after two days of travel. I’m so glad we didn’t get ants. Sometimes it’s better just to not look behind you.

Too bad we cleaned it out; we could have been reality tv stars.

Kansas Sky

I do understand why they’re called fly-over states. There really are things to see, however, in those states between the East and West Coasts. Things are just more. . . spread. . . out. And you could fall asleep in one part and wake up an hour later, look out the window and think you were in the same part. My background is Georgia, hills and green. It is beautiful out here, just a different kind. And we found plenty to do on our drive. One thing that Kansans are probably great at is studying clouds. The skies grew ugly pretty quickly during our drive, and although we didn’t experience any terrible weather, the cities to the east of us did. This is what we saw:

I edited these to bring out the nuances in the clouds. They’re pretty grainy coming from my iPhone…that adds drama, no?

Ok, this I just darkened a little. To this Georgia girl that is downright scary! I don’t think I’ve ever seen clouds covering 100% of the sky like that where it looks like ocean waves, rolling along. . . and we were in the ocean. You can see the light almost breaking through the clouds and you want to reach up and spread them apart to let the light in and prove that there is peace just beyond the turbulent. What do Kansans see?

Does anyone else see that button-looking, outie part of the cloud in the center of the photo? It’s surrounded by a little halo of light. Crazy! (Click on the picture to see a full size.)

This is the same picture as above. I used the MLR Gritty & Grungy preset in LightRoom (where I do 99% of my editing). I love the look this preset gives. Not as ominous. Below is the original photo. Looks like the clouds are almost touching that barn.

For me, clouds are usually passive objects in the sky that float along lazily, and if you make the time you can determine shapes in them and make up stories. These clouds were active and alive and daring and already telling a story, demanding the same respect that ocean waves do – beautiful, but you know that they are more powerful than you.

St Louis Arch and meeting a blog friend!

The cool thing about blogging is that you can make friends with people half way across the country or around the globe. When we were in St Louis I made sure to get in touch with NV, author of This D*mn House. NV and I “met” when she commented on my post about me mowing my lawn for the very first time. She is good at house DIY. . . Me? Not so much. So I have enjoyed reading her blog and all the projects she has accomplished. She’s also a lover of architecture and I love her posts on the history and architecture of the buildings of St Louis.

N suggested a great BBQ place, Pappy’s, and we met for lunch on a beautiful, sunny day. It was gooooooood!

It was so fun to meet up in person! Thanks, N!

After lunch we headed over to the Arch. Talk about architecture! My photo prompt for the week was to include a paper airplane in a picture. This was the perfect place for that! Enjoy the pics (I’m also playing around with watermarking).

This last picture is so cool because my hubby and girls are the only people in the picture. I didn’t even have to photoshop anybody out!

For the birds

We got to visit with my great aunt recently. Her back porch is very relaxing and we talked for hours. While we were talking I took the opportunity to practice “wildlife photography”. I snicker as I type that because how wild are birds that eat from bird feeders. Still, they are moving targets, I was shooting through glass and screen, and it was really windy. I was able to capture some interesting things.

The woodpecker has a long tongue. You can see that in his photo. I love how the brown…finch is giving me the look while her mate, the redder…finch? is busily eating away. You can see seed shells falling in the picture of the brown…finch? that is sitting straight towards the camera but has his head cocked to one side (and you can see his tongue). Not the best technically, by far, but enjoy!

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Flight 93 Memorial

We visited the Flight 93 Memorial recently. It’s not that long of a drive from the DC area. The Memorial is still a work in progress, but it is nothing short of powerful already.

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The wall follows the flight path, which leads your gaze to the impact site. Each person’s name is engraved on a different wall panel. Only family members are allowed out to the impact site.

There are small grooves cut into the barrier every so often where people have laid mementos. You can see the impact site behind the barrier in one of the photos above.

In a small building there is a bulletin board where you can pin your thoughts.

I’m still saddened whenever I think about that day. It’s hard to believe over ten years have gone by.

Spring!

I must admit this winter was not terrible at all. That was a gift God designed just for me, I’m sure of it. The plants and trees still go to sleep for several months, which has left us without color in the DC area.

So it’s the little things, like tulip magnolias in the Costco parking lot, that bring my girls and me the biggest joy when nature begins to wake up. In fact, these trees inspired a quick jaunt into DC to see if the other, more famous cherry blossom trees had begun to bloom. (They hadn’t).

I took this with my iPhone and then did some editing in LightRoom (some good, some questionable). I don’t think I took it over to Elements to edit there as well. I’m realizing I don’t really have an editing style yet–either a process that I consistently use OR a final look that tends to be me. I’m enjoying trying to figure that one out, though. I’m submitting this shot to Rock The Shot’s March photo challenge. If you’d like to play along head over to www.rocktheshotforum.com, specifically to this link here and add your pic.

I hope it’s spring where you are, no matter how mild your winter was! . . . Unless you’re in the southern hemisphere. Then you’re probably beginning to enjoy fall.

Calling a woman a slut is NOT a war on women

We’ve gotten so good at throwing around extremes. We love everything and everyone, we’re BFFs with any and everyone. Not getting the latest iPhone on its release day makes it the worst day ever. Really?

There are people who want to say that calling a woman a slut is war on women. Maybe they’re also talking about the idea that a PRIVATE institution wants to choose what it covers in its own health insurance. Really? Are those really what we want to call

WAR ON WOMEN?

Let’s sit back and take things in perspective. This is war on women:

• Sex-selective abortions and female infanticide. (Fortunately, female infanticide seems to be on the decline.) This is war on women.
• Genital mutilation such as circumcising females (nothing to do with hygiene) or sewing vaginas shut. This is war on women.
• Sex trafficking, which shockingly is alive and well IN AMERICA. This is war on women.
• Murdering, and publicly at that, women for having affairs. This is war on women.

Do we really want to say that an inappropriate comment and the desires of a private institution are wars on women? Cut the political bantering and forced American-feminist outrage. Put on your big-girl panties, forget about the old, white dude that called someone a slut, get righteously angry, and get the word out about the true war on women going on under the radar all over the globe.