A Truly Amazing Event!

This weekend, I had the pleasure not only of enjoying the Florida sunshine, but meeting up with others from the Parents of a Son or Daughter in the Military group that was founded on Facebook by Valerie Ostrom.

I found this group when my son first enlisted in the Army and although I haven't been as involved as I would like to be, Val does an outstanding job organizing events just like this.

There were 50 very special care packages prepared in memory of two fallen soldiers, SRA Jimmy Hansen (Air Force) and Sgt. Kim Agar (Army). People from all over the country came together to provide items and offer their support as our soldiers fight the good fight.

2009-12-31

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New Year

To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours is wisdom. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

With the impending new year, it gives us time to pause and reflect on the last year of our life and ponder what the new year might hold. Do not live with regrets, regrets just eat away at your very soul and make you long for something that never was and never will be. There's a reason for that. We may not know what that reason is, but it doesn't matter, there is a greater plan and we just have to go with it. It's when we try to control what's going on in our sometimes out of control lives that things get bad and the stress levels go up. The only thing to do is ride the ride and enjoy the moments that you can.

Happy New Year!!!

Where a dog can be a dog

I love my dogs, that's no secret. But the secret lies in the fact that sometimes I feel like a bad mom. Don't get me wrong, they are well fed, always in the house, they sleep on the couch (we've banished them from the bed) and they go places with us. We like to hike and we love to take the boys with us. They love to climb on the rocks and jump over fallen trees. But during the week, there's really no time to run. They won't stay in the yard and we can't just let them out for fear that they will get hit by a car and having been through that once, we can't deal with that ever again!

So yesterday we were trying to figure out where to go for our usual Sunday hike. I really wanted to take the boys someplace they could run. Off the leash!

We headed for "blue bridge" because the shale walls are so high and so steep, they're not going anywhere. There's water for Stetson since he's evidently part fish and just plenty of room for us to take them and let them exercise the freedom to run and play and be dogs!

As tired as they were when we headed for home, I think the trip was a success!

The Big Barn

It doesn't have to be red. It can be any color really. But I especially like those big old barns. The prairie barns that have that big sweeping roof they call the Gambrel roof. I see them and I can only imagine the house that you could make out of that barn!

It would be glorious! Open from floor to ceiling with loft bedrooms and a stone fireplace reaching all the way to the top! Staircases on both sides with big arched windows and those big wood planks for flooring.

Yep! When someone asks if I was born in a barn I can just say, nope, but I'd like to live there.

Mr. (& Mrs.) Runion's Wild Ride

We are the epitome of homebodies. Usually content to just come home and sit near each other for an evening of small talk, dinner, TV and computer time. Then off to bed.

Somewhere, I got it into my brain that we should do something. Not just one night, but two nights in a row...LATE NIGHTS. With work thrown in between. Now, we're not exactly old, but we do have our needs and one of them is sleep!

On the Friday before Halloween, we took Blaine and a few of his friends to see "Rocky Horror Picture Show." They had never been. He'd never even heard of it! Just the idea that I had done something that my kid had not was almost incomprehensible. These kids do everything, see everything, go everywhere. But I digress.

Thrown rice, flying toast and toilet paper and lots of guys in drag. What were my parents thinking? I could see it in his face. But they had fun! And they want to go back with more props and more friends!

On Halloween night, we visited Highball Halloween in the Short North Arts District in Columbus. We went unprepared. There were 15,000 people crammed into a few blocks, amazing costumes, but we didn't get to see it all! We waited by the stage for nearly two hours while they got ready for the costume contest. There were some very elaborate costumes! We stopped by Marcella's (great little Italian cafe' on High Street), picked up some salads and headed back to our hotel room. At 1:00 am!!! Yes, that's right. We ate dinner at 1:00 am! Of course we had a little wine with it!

Sunday morning, we packed up and headed for Hocking Hills to do some hiking. Did I mention that we took the dogs with us? And by the way, if you are traveling with your pets, this is the best website for finding those pet-friendly hotels!

OK, just to recap...Friday night Rocky Horror Picture Show and home around 2:15 am, worked Saturday morning (both of us) and up until 2 am on Saturday night, now on to do some hiking...Thank goodness for the time-change!

We visited Hocking Hills this past spring and absolutely fell in love with it. But from what we saw this time around, there is no bad time of year to visit this place. It is absolutely amazing!

Back to work on Monday! But wait! There's more!

On Wednesday night, we drove 2 hours away to see Daughtry and Theory of a Dead Man perform at the Cavelli Center in Youngstown, Ohio.

Needless to say, by this past weekend we were exhausted! Sunday afternoon was nap time and we took full advantage of it!

Hmmmm...let's see what we can get into this weekend!

1,000 Words

They say a picture is worth a thousand words...but what if you take a black and white picture? Wouldn't it take the words to give you the full effect of the photo? I've been doing a lot of reading lately, spending a lot of time looking at photos done by the masters of photography. Take someone like Ansel Adams, for example. There was no digital. There was, at first, no color photography. He shot solely in black and white. Look at some of the other famous photos and photographers. Do you notice that they mostly shoot in black and white? I know that for many, it was due to the fact that it was their only medium. But does it add impact? I mean really, what's so great about black and white photography?

As an experiment, I decided to take a walk today and shoot solely in black and white. But maybe everything wasn't meant to be shot in black and white. I don't know the answer and I know that my photos certainly don't carry much impact, but the funny thing is, even when I look at the photos in black and white, my mind still sees the colors. I know the reds, the yellows, the blues, the greens. So maybe the color doesn't matter. Maybe that's what we get from black and white photography. It's the photographers way of handing us a page from the coloring book. We just don't have to stay in the lines.

Addy do! Addy do!

Addy is about to turn two years old. I don't know where the time has gone.

Addy is really starting to develop her own personality! Her vocabulary is growing every day but she still isn't much bigger than a minute!

"Addy, I love you" I say to her. She responds "Addy love ma-ma," and she must also remind me that "Addy love papa." Like I ever doubted that!

The one phrase that she has developed very well is "Addy do!" As I'm sure you've figured out, any time she wants to do something herself, she lets you know by saying "Addy do!" Well, the last time she stayed with us, she felt she could brush her teeth by herself! So, I let "Addy do!"

She always gives me a reason to laugh and this last time she was over was no exception.

When we get to the bottom of the peanut butter jar, we always give the jar to the dogs. They are able to lick the bottom and sides of the jar and get any remnants that John may have left behind. I thought to myself, what better time to give them the jar than when Addy is here? I figured that way they'll leave her alone. Good idea!

A little while after I had given the boys the peanut butter jar, I was in the kitchen and heard Addy making a sound like she was licking the peanut butter out of the jar. I thought she was just making the noise, copying the dogs. Well imagine my surprise when she walked around the corner with the peanut butter jar in her hand! And yep, she really was licking the jar. GROSS!!! But it was pretty funny! I guess she figured if it was good enough for the boys, it was good enough for her, or maybe she just wanted to see what they were enjoying so much. Either way, she survived. A little dog slobber never hurt anybody, right? HA!

Every day I spend with her is a day full of discovery. A day full of laughter. A day filled with love. Her tiny hugs and sweet little kisses. And her favorite question..."papa?"

I can't wait to see her again!

On the way home

I guess that I am one of the fortunate ones. Even though I have a small commute to and from work, I don't have to drive in traffic jams and I'm not choked by the exhaust fumes being belched out by buses and automobiles. I get to drive through the country. Farms, fields and forests. Animals, corn and barns.

Today, I put my camera in the car with me when I left for work. Daylight is starting to leave us so much earlier these days. I hoped to be able to get some photos that were painted by the last light of day, what they call the "golden hour." "Typically, lighting is softer and warmer in hue, and shadows are longer. When the Sun is near the horizon, sunlight travels through more of the atmosphere, reducing its intensity, so that more of the illumination comes from the sky. More blue light is scattered, so that light from the Sun appears more reddish. And the Sun's small angle with the horizon produces longer shadows." Taken from Wikipedia

My definition: God puts his handiwork on display with the sun setting low in the sky, touching the fields and the trees and adding that perfect light.

I really am fortunate to get to experience this, I just need to remember to slow down and take it in every one in a while.

Falling Fast

Last week I was driving through the usual farm country on my way to and from work, noticing how yellow the soybean fields had turned and thinking to myself that I should probably take some pictures of this beautiful yellow field against the green of the surrounding trees and the blue of the sky...Little did I know that my delay in doing so has led to fields filled with drying foliage and the green trees are turning to the shades of fall; the bright yellow, orange and shades in between.

This means that fall is here. It's not just headed this way, it's full-on here. I guess if I hadn't been so busy I would have noticed that we are now in the last day of September. Tomorrow is October 1st. Granted, I've been thinking about Halloween and thinking about pulling out my decorations and John has been bouncing around the house like a school kid with the start of hunting season. All of these indicators of the season upon us. But I was too busy to notice.

Soon, those fields will be bare. Picked clean of the corn and beans that have painted the fields as I fly by from work to home and back. I do love fall with the weather beginning to cool, the orange pumpkins, the changing leaves, farmers busy in their fields. Yet, once again, I'm not ready. I didn't get done the things I needed to get done when the air was warm and the leaves were green. Once again, I'm behind the 8-ball, playing catch-up.

But for now, I will enjoy the colors of the season and try to get caught up...just in time for Winter!