My week in review

Friday, April 18th

Some of the photos from this week are over on Flickr

Saturday, April 19th

Waiting, waiting, waiting....So ready to RIDE!!

Watching as an injured rider is being airlifted out of the park by Calstar

My favorite place. The top.

Easter Sunday, April 20th -

These puppies are ready for our morning ride.

The light and shadows stopped us in our tracks

Saw this from way down at the bottom road. 

Monday, April 21st

This is my baby. It's his 22nd birthday today. They grow up so darn fast.

This has become a tradition for his birthday dinner.

Tuesday, April 22nd -

Out of the office for a way overdue mani/pedi  - in the middle of the workday. YES!

Company/Client dinner.

Best Gin and Tonic EVER. And oh so pretty.

This here is just a small indication of the remodel noise and chaos going on since February. They keep saying "it will look so nice when it's done." In AUGUST.

That's it for this week folks. On to the next crazy, busy, overwhelming week. Yes, I really do appreciate all that I have and having something to do whether I like it of not. But can we just slow it down a smidge here?  I'd like to take a nap.

It's my thing

And over on Flickr...

April 17th - Always looking up at the sky. A lot of my photos are of the sky, power lines, buildings, clouds, sunsets, a few sunrises. Yep, I've always been a dreamer. I spend a lot of time wishing I was somewhere else. Let me clarify; I spend most of my time at this job I have, wishing I was somewhere else. Where? Hmmm, outside taking pictures, Texas with my grand babies, on top of a mountain, at the beach, in an airplane, in my car/truck, in my bed...  I do believe I have felt this way most of my life. I struggle to be in the moment. Maybe I just have too many moments I do not want to be in. And the overwhelming theme lately; time for a change of venue. 

A little reminder

April of last year

April 17th - Looking through some photos from this time last year and was reminded of the pain I was in for about a week or so. My lower back had gone out and it was so bad, I had to resort to medication and sleeping over an exercise ball. I couldn't sit so I couldn't work or drive. It was awful and of course, I was worried it was permanent. I imagined I would be on medication and incapacitated for the rest of my life. One of my biggest concerns was that I wouldn't be able to get out and take pictures again. Thank goodness, I got better and since then have lost about twenty-five pounds. I am so grateful to be over that. Now, I need to get moving here and do some stretching. 

Blessings

The Flickr version here...

April 15th - The idea here is to write down a blessing each day and put it in this jar. I do this, usually in the morning for the previous day. Kinda like this blog. My best time of the day is in the quiet of the morning, by myself, after I have had my coffee. So, yes, this is when I can appreciate life and it's blessings. I started this jar, again, this January. The jar is pretty stuffed now and I may need to get  a bigger one. Some days I have lots of blessings and some days I am just blessed that I have this jar and am capable of writing. 

Sunny warm Monday

Also found on my Flickr stream.

April 14th - As tired as I felt, the day turned out pretty good for a Monday. Got my work done, shipped an Easter package to Texas, went for a couple of walks and managed not to lose my shit over stupid little stuff. Really, it's all little stuff. 

Hubs sent me an email in the morning with some photos from the weekend and he signed off with "It's Monday so...Have the day that you have." I love it and it makes me giggle. No pressure. 

The Wall

And over on Flickr...

April 11, 12, 13 - I hit the wall. This past week kicked my ass. Looking back now, it doesn't seam like it was all that bad but I was...not good. Clearly I'm doing it wrong and this needs to stop right now. As I type this I realize the last week or so I have not been making good choices when it comes to nutrition. Yeah, I've been eating like crap. Too much sugar and wheat. I know better. As much as what I eat and don't eat is about losing weight and getting healthy, it is just as much about my moods, my hormones and my energy. I know this and yet I forget and then wonder what the hell is wrong with me. The part that really pisses me off is that my photography suffers when I am a cranky, emotional mess with no energy. So, I start over, again.

On another note: I had a nice weekend which included pizza, beer, donuts, french fries, watching a whole movie...oh, wait, this is about the friends I got to see. Our best friends came down Friday night so we could go to a friends surprise 50th birthday party. She was very surprised because it was two months early. Saw friends we haven't seen in many years. Then Saturday I had lunch with a good friend from high school that I see about once a year but should see more often. Lunch, a glass of wine, walking through antique shops and catching up is always fun. Yesterday was chores and then crash and burn. Yep, it really was a great weekend even through the fog of the gluten hangover.

Lamb walker

April 10th - Yes, I took a photo yesterday and I posted it to Instagram. This is not it.

This week started out great and went down in flames with each day becoming more and more of a struggle not to completely lose my shit.

So, I started reading an article by Chase Jarvis about being Creative and I realized my 'photo a day' mentality may have stifled my photography.  A photo a day does give me some focus. At least I do this for me every day and it is a big deal to have this little bit of structure. My concern is that I think in terms of getting the one photo, take forever to make up my mind on editing, etc. and then sometimes scramble to get it out there before the end of the day. And then I forget about all the other photos I have, years and years that I want to, need to, would like to edit and share. There is this time issue. Oh and my attention span. HA! What attention span?

Back to this photo - one I've wanted to share for a while; This is from a drive up to Tomales last month. My first post back here was photos from this trip. This is a gentleman who likes to take his lambs for walks, like they are puppies. That's a busy highway he is going to cross but according to the locals, he does it all the time. One gentleman said bringing his lambs out for a walk is how he gets all the ladies to talk to him. Right after I took this, Hubs and I went into the local bakery to get a snack and on the walls were poster size photos of the locals, including the lamb walker.

The sunset that saved my day

View more of my photos on Flickr

April 9th - You know, I just can't get enough of beautiful sunsets. Still waiting for Hubs to build me a platform on the roof so I can get up higher. This one was on a walk with my son and his dog. 

So, the day didn't totally tank. Still, so tired of being tired. I'm working on changing this but my day job just kicks my butt most days to where I have very little left in the evenings. By the end of the week, well, I am ready to throw in the towel. Okay, that's not true. Usually by Wednesday I'm done. Yes, I am so very lucky to have a job but man, can we please slow this bus down so I can have the energy to do some of the things I actually want to do? 

Breakfast creations

April 8th - Yes, I like taking pictures of food. Only when it's delicious though. I've read and heard the negative comments about people who post food photos and sometimes I hesitate to share them because of that. Sometimes I think the photo is just not good enough to share. Take meat dishes...so hard to capture an appetizing photo of steak or pulled pork. Yet I am so inspired by the food photographers that make me want to shoot (and eat) good food. I get excited about a dish I have created so I want to capture it and describe what is in it....Here we have an organic breakfast bowl of creamy parmesean polenta, sautéed asparagus, sautéed spinach and two eggs-over easy on top. The organic part just happened to work out that way and the polenta and asparagus are left-overs from the night before. It was super yummy and very filling. Next up, taking more of these with my Canon vs my iPhone and working on my editing skills to get more detail out of the veggies in the bottom left corner there. Oh and maybe I should get back to editing on my external monitor instead of this laptop. It's worth noting (for my future reference) that this was taken while getting ready for work. So between making my breakfast and photographing it, I was late for work once again. 

Using my "real" camera

Looks better on black

April 7th - Oh, why I don't take my Canon with my 50mm lens on it EVERYWHERE, I just don't know. I am in LOVE with this lens! I went out for a walk just as the sun was setting and thought to myself that I would look for other things to photograph instead of flowers. You know, break up my photo stream a bit. And then I come upon my neighbors roses, which are exploding with color. I capture a few images, which I posted on Flickr and then I move on. For one, I need some exercise. it's a beautiful Monday evening I made it through the day. I'm almost done with my walk and I see this tree. What kind of tree is this? It's gorgeous! And I was all over it. I must be to sure walk  this way daily to watch and see what it does.

Gardening?

View this via my Flickr stream

April 6th - I used to have house plants. I also planted flowers, in a flower bed once and they actually grew. Then as I had more children, cats, dogs, moved a few times my thumb turned black and they all died. The plants, not my thumbs or the humans and animals in my care. Now I have trouble taking care of cactus. Yeah, I don't know what this is all about but now I'm going to attempt a small vegetable garden with my daughter aka Duchess. I have been thinking about trying again because I feel the need to grow my own organic food. I could go on and on about our food supply but I don't have time right now and well, focusing on one topic at a time is something I am really having trouble with these days. As I noted above, I've been thinking about growing a vegetable garden lately and then the Duchess texted me last week asking me what I thought about the two of us doing a small one. Perfect. Now I have someone to help keep me focused.

Saturday Morning Sunshine

View this in my Flickr stream

April 5th - Saturday morning is my favorite one of the week. Well, any day that I can take my time waking up, drinking my coffee, reading, writing and shooting is a favorite. Then again, everyday when I wake up is a great day...

When you arise in the morning, 

think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - 

to breathe, to think, to enjoy, 

to love.

Marcus Aurelius

"Shadow Play"

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dianemeade-tibbetts/13636391745/

April 4th - Lines and shadows intrigue me. Life is so busy and so cluttered at times, I find myself wanting to see (and capture) some calm. I'm inspired daily by Sukij Pongpisuth on Instagram because his photos are so clean, simple and quiet.

I noticed the light and shadow on these steps as I was walking towards them, got about half way up when I decided I needed to go back down capture them. Later I drove up to the top of a nearby parking garage to get photos of the beautiful storm clouds in the distance. I ended up sharing this one because I kept coming back to it again and again. Plus, I've been all about sky lately and I needed something different. 

A boy and his dog

April 3rd - This is our evening routine lately; listing to our son tell us about his day at the Police Academy. Even his dog wants to hear all about what he did for the day. This boy (yes, he is a full grown man now but he will always be my baby boy) is so excited about what he is doing right now and so in his element that he loves just about every minute of his days. We can't wait to get home each day to hear, and watch, his animated recreations. We have another ten weeks of this and then he will be on to bigger and better adventures. We are super excited for him and oh so very proud of how hard he is working.

I see sky of blue...

April 2nd - I was out running errands during my lunch hour and the sky was so gorgeous that I just knew I had to get up on a hill to capture as much of it as possible. So I did. Of course I was wishing I had my 7D. I really do need to carry that camera with me always. Whenever I can take take time to photograph the beauty I see, no matter what camera I have, it's a great day.

Yes, a Rainbow!

April 1st - I stepped out back to see if I could capture some raindrops with my camera, turned around and saw this. Who doesn't love seeing rainbows? I got so excited I grabbed my phone and then ran out front. I didn't care that I was in my PJ's and slippers, in my driveway, with my camera and my phone...in the rain. I love when this happens; when I get so into the moment that I don't feel cold (or hot) or self-conscious or whatever. Yep, this made my day.

Snail mail

Another version here https://www.flickr.com/photos/dianemeade-tibbetts/13559669575/

March 31st - I have a fascination with Post Office boxes, the older the better. These aren't that old but they are still interesting. 

Monday's are always so hard. It is the transition from weekend back to work week. Sometimes, it's just about getting through that day and thinking creatively takes work. Sometimes, I'm just not there. I did manage to get a few images for the day, thank goodness. And then I was done. Note to self; go to bed earlier.