Discover

Were you beginning to wonder if there was going to be a blog post this week, Dear Readers? Well, truthfully, it just about didn't happen. I took the opportunity to join a very old and dear friend (on very short notice) on a weekend road trip. Fitting to this week's Challenge theme I discovered a lot of things about myself thanks to my wonderful companion forcing me to confront myself.

This is one of the few pictures taken during our adventure. We had just finished a great Thanksgiving meal of smoked turkey and mashed potatoes.

I helped a friend celebrate his birthday shortly after I returned from our jaunt across Iowa. That didn't leave me much time to follow through with my thoughts on this week's Random Photo Challenge theme of Discover. There are much better interpretations over at Photography139. Unfortunately, I haven't taken the time to finish my composition for Impassioned Versifier this week.

We are currently dealing with some medical issues with Sis which means my blogging may be spotty over the next few weeks. Don't lose faith friends, I will be back on here as soon as I can!

Spiritual

Forgive my most recent disappearance from the blogging world. Life threw another curve ball at me, but I'm happy to say I'm still standing and now have new inspiration for several new writing projects.

This week's Random Photo Challenge theme was spiritual. What a great subject to get me back in the groove again! This Seraphim Angel was purchased by my father within a few months of my mother's passing. He told me that the resemblance to her soothed his grief.

This week's theme was good to get me out of the self-centered apathy that I had been feeling. There is a poem posted over at Impassioned Versifier that follows part of that thought process.

Photography139 has this week's scant submissions posted. The photos that can be found there have finally produced a little excitement in me for the upcoming holiday season.

Sppoky Goblins

A few more Halloween photos of Bug and Sis

The finished project.

We did discover that the eye holes weren't big enough. As the evening grew darker Bug required assistance to find his way around.

Sis joined us for trick or treating. She wittingly claimed her costume to be the character Juno (from the movie). Here she is checking out Bug's mask.

It was a pleasant Hallow's Eve, with the only complaint coming from Bug that Beggar's Night just isn't long enough. I think our candy dish (and my tummy) would care to disagree.

Smoke Photography

This week's Random Photo Challenge was rather fun. I guess it was the tiny bit of firebug in me that took so easily to this project.

I have never really purposely tried to photograph smoke before, so it took a little experimentation before I could figure out how to make the smoke roll in a photogenic way over the back drop I had set up. Many a match burnt out in the process.

Once again the photo challenge mirrored a few of my thoughts through out the week and the two came together to form a poem. I had been thinking quite a bit about "smoke screens" and how we all have a tendency to mask our feelings from time to time. Sometimes good feelings and sometimes bad. And how sometimes it seems we do it only out of the fear of bruising our egos.

There weren't as many submissions for this week's challenge at Photography139. As we near the end of this experiment I can't help but hope that everyone joins back in next week in an effort to encourage the Random Theme Generator to keep inspiring us next year!

Halloween

Sometimes Bug's brilliance and creativity just astounds me. This week has been one of those times.

This year we just haven't had the time to visit our normal Halloween-time haunts. We have been overbooked with soccer, Cub Scouts, school activities, and working on the house in between. This actually gave Bug a little more free time than I had though.

For those of you that don't know, I'm kind of a scrooge when it comes to store bought Halloween costumes. I'm not sure if this is because of my penny-pinching side or my creative side, but I really don't see the point in spending upwards of $30 for a costume that will only be worn once, is a copy cat of every other kid at school, and will invariably rip before trick or treating is over with. So every year I encourage my kids to be creative and work with what we have on hand. I am willing to shell out a few bucks for clothing that they will wear again or a handful of supplies needed to complete their project.

It has been a lot of fun to watch their creativity grow. From their year as Harry Potter and Hermine or Sis's jaunt as an emo/Gothic rock star, to Bug sampling life as a hobo last year, these kid's have really proved that they can think outside the box and work with what they have. Bug really proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt with this year's costume.

He has been a little obsessive about playing Mario Cart on the Wii lately. He comes home from school and tells me about how he and his classmates pretended that they were characters from the game during recess. Everything around here lately seems to revolve around his favorite character Yoshi. So it came as no surprise when he decided a few weeks ago that he wanted to be the little green dinosaur for Halloween.

He begged for me to give in and order a $50 costume off the Internet for him. I just couldn't justify spending all that money though and helped him look up ideas on how to make his own costume. We found a site that offered a suggestion on making a paper mache head of the character. So after the purchase of a couple large balloons, Bug set to work with piles of old newspaper and a water/flour/glue concoction.

I did help him attach the two balloons together after they had dried and took over the spray painting in an effort to minimize the mess.

He took the reigns of his project back again after the green spray paint was dry.

There are peep holes cut out of the black parts of the eyes and nostrils so he can see where he is going. We purchased the camouflage fleece pants and green thermal shirt on sale at Target for only $15.

The tail came from an old stuffed alligator that he had slated to be given away to Goodwill with a belt looped through it. Sis was mildly disturbed to see us hack away at the stuffed toy but was pretty impressed with the outcome.

Today is Bug's big classroom Halloween party. I had to commission a friend to give him a ride to school with the big costume. I am excited to hear his recount of the event when he gets home.

Shadows

This week's Random Photo Challenge theme did not fit so easily into my daily life as it should have. It was a mostly bright sunshiny week that should have afforded many opportunities to shoot a shadow. I had a lot going on as usual though, and the vast majority of it was indoors. By the time I sat down to devote a little free time to my creative projects each night, it was too dark to make any use of the shadows that were lurking.

I was really hoping that Sunday would be the day I could venture out of doors to enjoy the lovely weather and feel inspired. That wasn't in the cards as Bug had an accident with his scooter and I spent the afternoon tending to him with his bruised leg and skinned elbow. He is fine now after a lot of ice and rest. I put myself to work baking his favorite snicker doodle cookies and Sis a chocolate Oreo cheesecake that she had been craving. I feel quite a bit more relaxed after an afternoon of baking, so maybe there were some perks to being stuck in the house.

Towards evening I realized that I still hadn't found my shadow shot for the week. Bug instantly perked up and began making shadow puppets on the wall. Great idea Bug!

I did work on my poem at the beginning of the week. You can find it over at Impassioned Versifier as usual.

I was very glad to see several fantastic outdoor shadows posted over at Photography139.

Dry

Is it really Monday again? I suppose it is. Although barely at this point!

This week's Random Photo Challenge theme was Dry. There are definitely not any dry spells in my busy schedule as of late!

This post is a little later than I planned since I had a busy evening watching Bug's last soccer game of the season with Grandma & Sis, visiting Bug's open house at school, and then dining out for supper with Grandma & Bug.

I am still plugging away at fixing up the house. Hopefully some big improvements will be made this week now that Bug is done with soccer until the Spring. Somehow I managed to fire off another photo in line with the theme and come up with a few lines of verse as well.

These beautiful golden stalks were part of a dried fall flower arrangement that once occupied a crock in my newly remodeled guest bath. Belzerz decided the flowers need a slight bit more arranging and took the task of doing so upon himself. By the time he was done I only had a few stalks of dried wheat and grass left. These were slated for the garbage, but luckily hadn't made it so far when the theme for the week was announced.

Following the nature and garden idea, I squeezed out a couple of verses relating to Dry and have published the resulting poem over at Impassioned Versifier.

The submissions over at Photography139 were rather sparse this week but very well done. Be sure to check them out! Next week's theme is an exciting one, but you will have to read his post to figure out what it is.