261/365 Sugar and Spice

"To Be Me Or Not To Be Me"

I'm not sure whether I'm in a creative slump, a creative surge or maybe just a state of rebellion.  For the last couple days I haven't been able to think inside the box with the daily prompts.  You would think that with all of the cooking that goes on around here that I would have been able to come up with something good for "sugar and spice."  Everything that I thought of seemed boring and uninspired.

Feeling a bit defeated, I climbed up on the couch and put my feet up to watch the news for a few minutes before tackling the night's work.  I had kicked off my shoes; I then smiled when I looked at the colorful socks I had put on twelve hours earlier.  They weren't at all visible with the shoes that I wore to school, but I knew that I had them on.  Because I make a lot of my socks, I have many that are wildly colored like these.  That is part of my personal fashion statement.  Whoa!  Did I just say that I have a personal fashion?  That may be going a little too far…

As I looked at my feet, the wheels in my head started turning.  I could take a picture of one of my feet in its "sweet" boring brown school shoe and the other in its "spicy" sock, sans shoe.  That might have been fun, but I just couldn't get the whole image in my head and make it work.  As I sat a little longer, now paying absolutely no attention to the TV news, I considered various shoe and sock possibilities.  Finally it came to me…go all out.  Shoot  sugary, grown-up lady shoes on one foot  (Yes, I actually own some of those despite the fact that most people who know me have never seen them on my feet.) and the spicy, colorful, fun, more me shoes on the other foot.

It took a few attempts to make this work.  It is hard to focus a camera on something that is not there to focus on.  I am getting better with the timer on my camera and both getting myself in the picture and also being marginally in focus.  I'm pretty happy with the way this came out.  It does make me giggle a little.

Here's to wearing and being whatever makes your heart sing and your feet happy!

260/365 On A Board

'A Splinter of Who I Am"

This is just where I am today…not sure why this spoke to me, but it did.

259/365 What's In Your Bag

'Does Anyone Have A Pen?

The point of today's prompt was to document the things that you carry around in your purse or bag every day.  As I mentioned a few weeks ago with the "back to school" prompt, I don't carry a purse; I carry a backpack.  My backpack is full of stuff that is useful and necessary, but necessarily photo worthy.  I don't want pictures of all the papers I need to grade, or the binders of lessons, or the various notebooks of notes and sketches for various projects.  The only thing that seemed interesting to me in my bag was my pencil case.  It is full of cool office supplies and pens and pencils.  I love pens and pencils, not the fancy and expensive ones, just the fun ones.  I have a specific pen or pencil for every writing task.  There is the journaling pen and the crossword pencil, the composing pencil and the grading pen, the drawing pencil and the sketching pen.  Perhaps this is just a way to try and justify my ridiculous attraction to writing instruments.  All that to say that today I photographed a few of my favorites.

258/365 Relax

"Sunday Soak"

This photo is one of wishful thinking . . .if I had had time to relax, this is what I would have done.  Time soaking in the hot tub is good for both my body and my spirit.

Today was a full day of church and singing, regular Sunday services this morning and then a beautiful Choral Evensong this evening followed by dinner with a dear friend.  Though it was not particularly relaxing, it was a good day.

Now I am enjoying a cafe mocha...

257/365 Typical

"September Saturday Selfie"

The second Saturday of the month, self portrait day.  

I had a busy day that began with a rehearsal this morning and ended with a concert this evening at school. I wasn't sure how I was going to get a selfie done.  These usually stress me out anyway; add to that a full day and it becomes a bad mix.  But, I knew I needed to do it.

I went outside this afternoon to check the bird feeders.  I took my camera just in a case there were a few hungry, not angry,  birds around for me to snap a few quick photos.  There were none.  I noticed that the light was really pretty and thought what the hell; I'll go ahead a try a picture of myself.

I grabbed the lawn chairs and foot stools, set the bird feeder on the stool and my camera on the arm of the chair, focused on the feeder, set the timer on my camera and then replaced the feeder with my face.  This was the outcome.

As far as self portraits go, its OK.  I think that having spent last weekend with the NOAH group made me a little less self conscious about how I look.  This attitude adjustment made today's picture a whole lot easier to approach.  One of the mottos from last weekend in Portland is "I don't give a sh*t!"  It served me well here :-)

256/365 On the Table

"The 13th Table"

Many of the people who are part of the Capture Your 365 community are avid and very talented scrapbookers.  Yesterday many people posted scrapbook type collages as a documentation of the details of their day.  It was cool to see an entire day in snapshots.  Because I worked from home today, I decided that I would give the collage thing a try.

I had tons of work to gone done today and most of that was going to happen at the dining room table so the day's prompt and my schedule seemed to align.  So here is my day from the perspective of our dining room table.

• Since today is Friday the 13th, a calendar shot seemed appropriate; and, it gives context to the otherwise generic shots.
• Yes, the cat is on the table, but she waited until after I was done eating.  And because she is on the table, she is not on the kitchen counters where the bread is being made.
• I had time this morning to look at the puzzles in the paper and drink an extra cup of coffee.
• In the mail this afternoon, we received some anti-bullying materials that Weber and I hope to be able to use for programs at his school.
• I did actually spend some time organizing all of my school papers, hence the hole punch so that all the loose papers could be corralled in the appropriate binders.
• Though we went out for dinner tonight, the lazy susan that lives in the middle of the table reminds us to always "come home for love."

Though I know I don't have the time to document every day like this, it was a fun project.  I think that I will attempt to do something like this at least once a month.  We'll see if I can make that happen.

255/365 Details of the Day

"Real Life"

It doesn't get much more real than this during the evenings at our house.  Sad, but true.  Since we both usually have work to do at night, it is nice that we share a home office.  If we didn't, we'd never see each other!