clickmom

aced

me: Matt? What is that on your toe?

Matt: Oh that .... ahhh, it's ink. I played tic tac toe on my toe! (smirk)

me: gulp (insert nervous tick here)With who?

Matt: I played by myself.

Evan brought home some tests to be signed. These are some words he used and spelled correctly: etiquette, positively, interact, and ventures. These are some words that Evan spelled incorrectly (with interpretations) nomadar (no matter), choas (chaos) and rular (ruler). Go figure.

Last night I went to that photographers meeting. The photographers gathered and only some brought work to share. We all signed a sheet to indicate if we had brought work in and then two by two we put our work on display and the other members would take a close up view and then sit down to critique the work. I listened without commenting to the first couple of critiques so that I could size up the people there and before long I could tell which was the guy who has a lot to say but doesn't know much, which was the guy who is a mover and shaker and going somewhere, and who was the guy who is old school and stuck in his ways, and a few other characters too.

I was loving every second of disecting a photo, my mind was in overdrive, and as the photographers revolved and put up piece after piece I became more and more alive.

When my turn to display work came around I went up to the front, put up 5 landscapes that I had taken this summer, and told the audience that I was thick skinned and that they need not hold back with their opinions. For a few seconds no one said a thing and I just stood up there awkwardly, smiling and looking around hoping for a hand in the air or a gesture or anything at all... and then the guy that I had pegged as the mover shaker spoke up from all the way in the back corner and he said "Cool ... Cool" while nodding his head in approval and then everyone agreed that they loved my photos and that my photos were painterly and the photographers said pretty much only nice things and nothing negative and I was happy and very excited that my stuff was well liked.

I never really know how other people will react to my stuff because it's all so personal to me. Especially since 3 of the 5 landscapes were utopian and the other 2 were shot with my point and shoot (gasp!) from the car while crossing the Tappanzee Bridge (husband was driving!) The other photographers even thought the graininess of the point and shoot added to the ambience of the photo. I'm telling you, I was totally having a Sally Field moment. They loved me! THEY REALLY LOVED ME!

I was so excited I couldn't stop talking or even settle down and go to sleep last night. It was great.

highway sunset

bad-ass

First you should know that I am totally PMSing.

Second you should now that my right leg has once again floated right out of my right hip socket and I am in a fair amount pain. Pain makes me mean.

Third is that photographers group I was so psyched about was supposed to be tonight except when I pulled up the place was dark and there were three bewildered looking guys sitting outside wondering if someone was going to come and open up the place. No one came and my editor (the photo hobbyist) and I did end up chatting with the three other dupes and they were nice enough. I now fear the group might be a bit amateurish for me, one guy, the professional, said that he thought the critiques were a bit too on the positive side and not constructive enough. Here I am to save the day! Have I ever mentioned how completely critical I am? I can be brutal. Now I have to wait a another month?!?!? Damn!

And lastly, Evan's teachers sent home a little question form and they want us to answer all sorts of questions about Evan's personality and possible quirkiness. I feel quite certain that Evan's teachers are not going to read all 172 forms they get back. I think they are just going to file them away in case the kids get into trouble. I think we should write "Evan is bad-ass. Don't mess with him." and send the questionnaire back. The husband doesn't think that that would be quite as funny as I do, but I'm thinking that when Evan (and this just might be inevitable since Evan already got reprimanded in the hallway by a teacher for punching his friend's book, which according to Evan is merely some kind of manly bonding game they play only because they are such cool dudes) does get into big trouble, and the teachers whip out the form to see what Evan's parents think of him, that this would be the perfect thing to have on there. Agree with me please! Come on people!

soaring

Just so you know, I rolled over at 3AM last night and the tv was on again!! This time I did not see the white flash, just the purple screen. Am completely thrilled (if not kinda tired) by thought that grandma is around. Doubt if you must (like the husband) but since it makes me happy, you are not going to change my mind.

I'll have to make this quick, since Hanna is beating down on us, and electricity might be short lived....

Did two amazingly wonderful things today, first, I took the boys to a short film screening and learned all about timed film contests that Matt could participate in. Second I attended a group show photography opening and found out about a photo group that meets once a month just 15 minutes from my house, and I am so totally joining up. I can feel my creativity beginning to move again.

So, here, enjoy..... It's the view from my dock in utopia.

nothing to say

baseball letters-weekly winners

Spring sports are here! Hurray the shooting is outside again! Since there has been much baseball in my agenda for the past two weeks, I thought I would do an all baseball (yeah spring sports!) all letter (hello NaBloPoMo) weekly winners. Hello sarcasticmom!

weekly winners from the rehab

Grandma's new wheels

All the patients who need constant watching get pushed into the open area and are seated around a television. Grandma doesn't like this. But they do it to her so she doesn't try to get out of the wheel chair again. Most of the others do not talk. One talks to himself all day long.

Waiting for the female nurse to help her into the bathroom.

Every one needs reassurance from their loved ones. This lady felt like a burden to her daughter.

Happy to see her own family.

Go to sarcasticmom for more weekly winners! She's got the big juicy master list!

winners from a loser of a week

I started out the week busier than usual but always looking out for something inspirational to capture. The weight of what is going on hadn't really fully effected me yet. I was excited to see the full moon rise and managed to capture it on my iphone

And then I saw this on the floor in the hall right outside grandma's room. And I recognized it as one of grandma's pills. And I wondered if grandma had thrown her medicine at the nurses that morning. She can be like that. So I didn't ask. But being there with someone who is so difficult makes me feel very small. Like I hope I can be invisible so no one looks at me and tries to see how I am going to be difficult one day too.

And by the end of her first week in the hospital she started to shut down too. She didn't want to hear that her toe might have to come off.

I tried to find something to shoot today, it's my birthday, but I woke up all swollen and puffy eyed, so no self portraits, and nothing outside the window was remarkable, so I pretty much just gave up. Happy birthday to me, I wonder what time I should go to the hospital. Feeling very sorry for myself right now.

Go to sarcasticmom to see more (less depressing) weekly winners.

photos of the week

Once more, I give you sarcasticmom's weekly winners!

This week I shot wrestling. I completely love shooting wrestling. There is this great mood of shooting wrestling. I find it very zen and very meditative most times. It's a pretty intense sport, there is much strategy and lots of brute strength. When I am shooting for the paper I sit on the side waiting for a chance to catch both wrestler's faces at the same time. Not as easy as you might think. After I sent in my shots for the assignment tonight I sat in front of my computer, reviewing the hundreds of photos I took at this week's tournament and noticing how the boys bodies were all tangled around each other and how they would grab each other. And I started to notice how much those grabs just kind of spoke to me. It was very poetical, in a way. How I could see such strength in some of them or movement and energy in some of the others. So I started to go through the shots again, looking for chance photos of hands and arms that said something. And I pulled some of those photos out and cropped the heck out of them and converted them to black and white. And here they are, freshly edited for your viewing pleasure wrestling photos:

blogiversary

I started this blog 3 years ago after an unsettling assignment I did for the paper. Go check out my very first post. so, happy three years to me. Back then I had to cover the funeral of an 18 year old. His story was as tragic as a super nice everybody's friend kid every body loved 18 year old dying of some previously undetected heart defect coud be. And he was an only child. Even worse.

I had just read about mommy bloggers (but I don't we were called that yet) in a NY Times article. Needing an outlet for what I had just experienced at the funeral I fished out the article to figure out what to do/how to do it and started my blog. At the time I thought this funeral was the beginning of more and more sad heart breaking stories for me and I wanted an outlet to write about my life as a full time mom and part time photojournalist. Which is pretty funny if you ever see my paper because besides a whole lot of high school sports it's all pretty much babies and kittens for me to photograph. So my idea of this blog being an outlet for me as a working mom went by the way side and the blog just became my outlet for every day life. I mention work occasionally, but honesty, I love my job, my real editor is like a second mother/friend to me, (no comment on the sports editor who keeps sending me to cancelled games) and the only funeral I shot after that boy's one was an unremarkable older guy that just didn't bother me.

Tonight however, I shot the first meeting of the group that is organizing a local Relay For Life event here. In case you don't know it is a fund raiser for the American Cancer Society. I kept thinking about my parents. I was fine for a while, shooting photos and thinking that people were there mostly in support of old people who had cancer, but as I shot the people and asked them their names and some background for the photo caption I have to submit with my photo, I realized that most of the people there were in fact survivors. And they all looked like they could be me. Or at least they looked like they could be sititng in the next SUV in the pick up line at any of my kids school's. And then I remembered that I still have that procedure scheduled for the 25th.

Now I am not sure where I fit in in this world. Obviously I am a supporter of my parents. But am I a survivor? Or will I be a survivor? It seems like an exageration to say "me too" to cancer. I mean, one more small procedure and I assume I am going to be just fine. No hospital stay, no seriously long and painful recovery, no dreadful chemo, no hair loss. Just a slice and a boo boo and the only after effect of this for me is going to be obsessive mirror looking. Because I am always going to be worried and looking. So even though I had to run out of there crying when the middle school kid started telling about her mother's fight with cancer, I am not sure if I am just the daughter of people with cancer or if I could possibly be or if I really am one of them.