Lego and Poe

Today's photo brought to you by little energy, little creativity, and little light. (The prompt is spooky background.)

96/365-3 Bunch

"A Bunch of Good Advice"

I love it when the wisdom that I need in that moment comes to me while capturing my daily photo.  This little monkey is my inspiration for today.

45-53/365-3 Another Round of Catching Up

February seems to have whizzed by and I have no idea where it has gone!  All month I have been making lists of things that I need to do and I have actually crossed a goodly number of them off, but it seems that I am adding new things faster than I am removing accomplished tasks and the lists continues to grow.  The good news in all of this is that I have gotten a lot done, both things that I need to do and a few that I want to do.  I'll continue to work to whittle down at the rest trying to be gentle with myself about the places where I have fallen short.

As I write this tonight, I have a wicked cold that is not doing anything to help my productivity.  The good news is that due to an impending ice storm, school has been cancelled for tomorrow.  That gives me some to get some extra rest in the hope of defeating the cold and some time to catch up on other things.  I consider the ice and cold to be a gracious gift from Mother Nature, just what I need right now.

And now to catch up on the daily photos so that I can scratch that off of my list.

45/365 Valentine

"Edible Valentine"

We celebrated a simple Valentine's Day sharing bagels and coffee.  That evening, We went to see Book of Mormon with some friends.  That show is so wrong but so hilarious!

46/365 Depth of Field

"Bones"

The dogs supervised this shot in case any props happen to be dropped along the way.

47/365 Flowing

"Goofy Grapes"

This was a last ditch effort taken and edited very late at night with my phone.

48/365 Wide

"Rainy Afternoon"

Standing out in the rain taking this shot reminded me how much I love rain.

49/365 XOXO

"XO"

A late night photo of a late night snack.

50/365 Isolate It

"Quiet Life"

51/365 Colored Bokeh

"Signs of Spring"

On the way out to the mailbox on Friday afternoon we noticed the first dandelion of the year, the first sign of spring.  I felt like I needed to document that, but I also felt a bit guilty about our dandelions and seventy degree weather while so much of the country was immobilized by snow and bitter cold temperatures.  And now it is 28 degrees here and we will wake up tomorrow morning to a blanket of ice.

52/365 Indistinct

"Wishes"

This was not the photo that I intended to take for the prompt, but it was my favorite photo of the day so it became my daily photo.

53/365 Looking Forward

"Frankie"

Nothing was happening for me creatively today.  Though I am usually a positive person, always preferring to look forward rather than backward, I just couldn't muster any enthusiasm for the day's shot.  Perhaps this is because of the cold that has taken up residence in my head.  Now that I think about it, I really don't feel well.  On the up side, I did get a picture of Frankie for this month.

For what it's worth, I am now caught up here...one less thing on my list!

And, there is a new Pixels, Plates, and LOLs! post.

37/365-3 I Heart Minifigures

"Love Is Love"

21/365-2 Play or Meal?

Geodesic Gnome Dome

Food photography is not my forte.  And, I am a firm believer that bad food photography is the worst kind of bad photography.  Every time a prompt surfaces that involves food, I tend to think, think, rethink, and overthink...as was the case today.  To make matters worse, today's prompt implied that the food shot should be a clever...oh great.

I thought about it for awhile.  The picture below is my response.  It is a take on something I think I saw in an online article a year or so ago.  As far as my contribution, it is fairly uninspired, but it fit the bill.

I remembered after I took this that the girls wanted me to photograph the gingerbread house that they built over the weekend.  (We were out of town and our kitchen was overtaken.)  Brooke and Erin have made a tradition of building a gingerbread house together over the Christmas holidays.  However, now that they both have "grown-up" jobs, time did not allow for that during the real holiday season, so it was put off until now.  As I was photographing their gingerbread dome, I thought, "Well duh; this is a much better image of playing with food than was my silly fruit and shredded wheat."  And, it's more meaningful.  I am glad to have documented the yearly house building.

I think Mr. Gingerbread Man is a little concerned about the style, or lack thereof, of his new neighbor.  We'll see what the geodesic gnome dome does to the property values in their neighborhood.

Mr. Gnome is glad to meet his new neighbors.

A Gnome With a View...

I'm glad that my girls keep me entertained...the Legos were more contribution to their project.

12/365-3 Frost

"Fire and Ice"

Though it was chilly today, it was not chilly enough for frost so I had to go a different route with today's prompt.

With sincere apologies to Robert Frost, here is my silly illustration of his poem Fire and Ice.

Some say the world will end in fire; 
Some say in ice. 
From what I've tasted of desire 
I hold with those who favor fire. 
But if it had to perish twice, 
I think I know enough of hate 
To say that for destruction ice 
Is also great 
And would suffice.

5/365-2 Ensemble

"A Duo of Duos"

It's bad enough when people start looking like their dogs, or couples start looking like each other...but when a couple starts looking like Lego mini figures????  Scary stuff.

363/365-2 Orange

"Surprise!"

346/365-2 Peppermint Stick

"Christmas"

323/365-2 The Number 4

"Just Four Fun"

313/365-2 Perspective

"Look!"

...a good piece of advice for all of us.

And I am finally caught up!!!

266/365-2 Who?

"And Her Choice Is..."

Nothing but some fun with the Legos today...

Whom will she choose?  Will it be the safe but boring businessman?  The gorgeous but somewhat stuck-up athlete?  Or, the fun loving but seriously unstable musician?

255/365-2 From the Garden

"Beware"

Anything having to do with a garden at our house this year requires a vivid imagination!  

I came up way short of creativity with today's prompt.  A trip to Target, ostensibly for throat lozenges to address the fall cold that I feel coming on, yielded this cute little Lego figure...and pumpkin spice M&Ms.  This was the best I could do today.  No garden, no creativity, no energy and a sore throat all make for blah a photo.

247/365-2 Beginning

'Beginning to Become"

Thursday afternoons are my favorite time of the week.  I am done teaching for the week at 3:00.  I can leave school and don't have to be concerned about anything having to be done this evening.  It is an awesome feeling after worrying on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights about making sure that I fully prepared for the following day.  I do spend Friday's preparing for the next week, but for now, I am free!  Teaching seven different classes is a lot to keep straight!  I am finding that I have to write EVERYTHING down - what I've done in each class, what I want to do, what I need to do, what I need to write, what I need copy, etc., etc., etc.  I find myself becoming some kind of distant relative to the crazy cat lady...the crazy list lady.  Lists rule my world right now.

All that said, because Thursday affords me some truly "free" time, I had a chance to think about and experiment with today's prompt - "beginning."  As I reflected on what that meant to me in this moment, I thought about how I am beginning to get myself together and am establishing a regular rhythm for this semester.  In that moment of confidence, I also realized that though I may be getting myself together,  I am really tired and, as hard as I am working, truthfully I feel like I am only a step ahead of the game.  Dismiss those thoughts for the moment.  Don't get bogged down.  This is playtime!  What better subject for depicting "putting yourself together" than Lego mini figures.  These guys never disappoint me when i comes to using them for photographs.

I spent at least an hour outside in the driveway taking different photos.  They all made me smile.  I was having pure fun, the kind of fun a child has when they are allowed to just play - no rules, no imposed goals, just imagination.  As I was going through all of the photos later in the evening, Brooke came in and watched over my shoulder as I scrolled through them. Even she got a chuckle out of all of the mini figure antics.  With her help, I decided on this photo to represent my day just because it is so ridiculous and because the look on his face clearly says, "I am who I am!"

229/365-2 Eye Level

"Think Big!

Your perception is your reality so think big!

184/365-2 American

'Freedom"

124/365-2 A Vision Of What I'm Reading

"Good For A Laugh!"

They say that art mimics life.  Scott Hilburn, who draws the Argyle Sweater, must have been at my house and observed my life..  I have a shelf that looks just like this!  Well, not exactly like this.  Most of my heads are attached to bodies, but they can be shared at a moment's notice.  I feel vindicated!  Obviously if the obsessive collecting of Lego mini figures has made it to the comic strips I am not alone.

119/365-2 Buzz

"Sweet Music"

62/365 Choose A Favorite (Macro Monday)

"Blue Monday"

Today was just a weird day all the way around.  Last night, because of ice and bitter cold temperatures, it was announced that Weber had no school today.  I had a delayed start - 11am.  This late start was nice, but it made no sense.  Our classes are on a schedule where they begin at either 10:30 or 12.  So with an 11 o'clock start time do we come for a 10:30 class?  My students all decided "No!"

Because we got this notification last night, rather than early this morning, I stayed up way too late watching a photography class online.  Ironically, it was on nighttime photography.  Having not gone to bed until almost 3am, we slept in until about 8:30 and had a leisurely breakfast before I headed to school.

Even by noon, the halls at school were empty.  Weber and I had lunch together and I did a little grading.  Many people seemingly opted to take the entire day off, including my 1:00 composition student.  Fortunately my 2:00 was early so we had our lesson and I was done by 2:30.  That was a much appreciated gift.

By the time we went to school at 11 there was virtually no moisture of any kind on the roads in our area.  Since travel was fine, this evening we kept a dinner engagement with a friend.  All in all this has been a good day, just an odd one.

Photographically speaking, it was "Macro Monday" with the suggestion being to photograph our favorite color of crayon.  It should come as no surprise that my photo contains a blue crayon.  I had a hard time trying to think of something interesting to do.  I finally decided that I would just embrace the weirdness of today and call it a happy Monday.

47/365-2 A Visit

"Sunshine"

I'm a little short of inspiration today.  We had a visit from sunshine and warm temperatures - highs in  the 70's after days earlier in the week with highs in the 20's.  The weather is so crazy these days.  Anyway, these two decided to take advantage of a beautiful afternoon outside.

An observation:  It is a weird feeling to realize that you and your husband look like the Lego mini figures and your Bitstrip avatars.  When we start to look like our passport pictures it will be time to take drastic measures!