The Wake Up Call

A few years ago, well not that many really, my parents owned the house that Bethany and I now own and live in. Mom always had these great flower gardens and hummingbird feeders and bird feeders full of seed. They were a photographer's delight.

When she moved out, I quickly discovered that I just don't have my Mom's green thumb, or quite the interest in working outside that she did. The past two summers have been very hectic and, while this summer is going to be busy once July rolls around, I have a bit of a slower pace to run this year.

So I've decided to get some of that green thumb back. Just last week I purchased (OK, so Bethany purchased it, but give me a break. I'm still temporarily unemployed ;) a 50 pound bag of bird seed. I cleaned off the bird feeder that my Grandpa made and my parents installed at the end of the porch. I filled it up with seed and a day later I started having birds return to my feeder.

I do have birdhouses up in the yard and I plan on hopefully adding some more this summer. The old clothesline (that we rarely use) supports two houses, one single and one three bedroom condo. Both of these are full. And as I was coming back in the house from cleaning my feeder, I looked to my left and saw two little heads poking out of the single bird house.

This morning I woke up to the sounds of a dozen or so birds chirping and flying around my feeder. I managed to make it to the window and peep through the blinds without scaring them. I think that maybe this week I'll fill up the feeder for finches and hang it off the post as well. Hopefully I'll be able to make the birds accustomed to my presence long enough for me to take a few photos to share here. When I first purchased my camera, I would sneak over to the fence and photograph the birds off my neighbor's feeder. As cool as birds sound, they're even cooler when you can capture them in mid-flight.

Now as I'm blogging this morning, I happened to look over at the "Blogs I'm Following List" and see where my buddy Sarah was given the Beautiful Blogger Award for her blog, The Student Knitter . In reading her post, I see that she nominated me for the same award, so naturally I have to say thank you and congratulations on your own award!

Bethany and I met Sarah and her husband (whom I'll call Mr. Pie on the Web because she does) when we photographed their wedding almost two years ago. We became pretty good friends and we're even having dinner together Sunday. They introduced us to the world of playing Dungeons and Dragons, which, yes, can be just as nerdy as it sounds, but it sure is a whole lot of fun.

Another Week

Now this is my kind of day. The sun is shining (except for when it's not) and the wind is blowing strongly, keeping the temperatures comfortable.

This is going to be a fun week. We have a lot of friends coming up this week to hang out for dinner and various fun games, so it's a full week but a good one. The upside is that the books that Amazon has had on backorder for me for about a month now should be shipping out today, so I'll finally get to see what happens to Captain Jack Aubrey next. It'll be sad when I run out of those books.

The morning passed in a blur of errands and the afternoon will be zipping by with some chores. I have a little cleaning and yard work left to do yet, but nothing really strenuous. After polishing that off I'll be diving back into the book I'm working on with Devan. I've fallen behind on that, but with everything I've had happening in the past couple weeks, I'm fine with that.

A Weakness For Cheese Balls

Now this is what I call a quality week. Yes, it was busy, but I managed to check off every single thing on my to-do list and even knocked out a few extras. It just doesn't get any better than that.

The best part was Saturday, which I spent entirely with Bethany and even made a trip to Roanoke for some supplies for the pantry from Sam's. Late Saturday we polished off Alice In Wonderland and Sherlock Holmes, though both those movies kept us up until after 2 a.m. Great movies. Alice always has been one of those movies that seemed to reach out to something slightly surreal, and this one most definitely kept that tone. The Mad Hatter, played by Johnny Depp, was a pretty impressive character, I thought. I'd be curious to know more about his story.

Oh, and apparently I have a weakness for cheese balls. If I were Superman, those things would be kryptonite. Those little orange balls of goodness catch me every time I walk by them. I'm going to have to stick them over the dryer and close the door.

Getting Started All Over Again

Yesterday was, as Gandalf once said of Minas Tirith, "...the deep breath before the plunge."

Today is the plunge.

After a weekend of very successful shooting, Bethany and I have the better part of 1,000 pictures to sort through and process. At least half of them must be done by the weekend. Not only that, but I'm meeting with Heather this weekend to discuss the new project, so I need to have something significant to show her as well. On top of that, we have another bridal setting to shoot Saturday.

Oh, and I really want to find out how everything ends in the Percy Jackson series by polishing off The Last Olympian at some point.

Going to be a busy week.

I think I'd better go fix a sandwich first, though. I just can't do anything on an empty stomach.