Christmas Blessings...

May you have a blessed and beautiful Christmas. May you feel love and give that love in return.

Inspire Me Thursday

It's been a while since I've particpated in one of the Inspire Me Thursday challenges. I really want to do better with things like that so I stretch my creativity. The challenge for this one is to show something to reflect a paradox which one definition from dictionary.com is "a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth." I started thinking about my photographs and this one came to mind. The reason I took it was because of the beautiful sky reflected in the glass. In other words a man made object reflecting something of God's world. We are a reflection of God and just how much we let Him into our lives or don't let him in. It is also hard sometimes to remember just how much our actions or how we treat others is also a reflection of how they will see God.

The simplicity of kittens...

I am continually amazed at the simplicity and love of life of kittens. One minute Tigger is curled up sleeping angelically, the next minute he is terrorizing Scooter and the next he is in the bath tub chasing his own tail. Kittens come packed with their own entertainment. I always wonder if they know they are chasing their own tail or if they forget it's part of their body and it's some cool moving creature. He also finds inanimate objects so fascinating. Looks like if he waits long enough it will move and then he can chase it.

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He has taken to sleeping on a pile of place mats. What's with that?

I'm just about done with Christmas cards. I actually used one of my Sizzix die cuts this year. Not as fast as something like the Cricut but it's what I have for now. I like the Cricut but not that they've disabled the usb port so you can't hook it up to a pc and do more with it. I'm waiting for that or I'll end up with one that already has that available. The big advantage with the Sizzix is that I can cut chipboard with it and you can cut the paper to cover the chipboard. Nothing else does that at this point. I'll post pictures later.

Tigger

Kitten now has an official name, Tigger. He is just so adorable and such a love bug. Puppy and Scooter are still adjusting to having this strange, rambunctious critter in the house.

Today Mom and I went to downtown Decatur for a stroll amongst the shops with Rebecca, her mom Ellen, and Jan. It would be cool to live in an area where you can just walk out and shop and dine without needing the car. It was a lovely, crisp afternoon and some neat shops.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

My family came over today and we had a very nice afternoon and dinner with all the usual trimmings. We even had a few rounds of playing Catch Phrase. My brother Scott said a nice prayer before eating about being thankful everyday for the things we see and the things we might not see. Being thankful is something that is easy to forget sometimes but so important. We all have different struggles in our daily lives but God is always so good to us.

God bless you and keep you.

Wild Child

So you get two blogs in one night. Last week my friend Renee talked me into baby sitting a kitten she aquired in the hopes that I would keep him. I figured that would be likely even though I really wanted a girl kitty. Renee said I could always go back to having three cats. I think two is enough for now. Little Bit doesn't have a name yet. Renee called him Romeo but I'm not sure it fits him. Rebecca came up with Spike and I thought about Tiger. Still not sure. Can't just call him Kitten. We already have a dog that never got past the name of Puppy but it suits him. So let's have a name the kitty contest. Not sure what the prize will be but never fear. It won't be the cat.

My older cat, Scooter, still isn't sure what he thinks about this. He is oddly fascinated while at the same time very annoyed. Kitten thinks he is a big chew toy. It's funny to watch. Well it's past my bedtime. ttfn

Fall Color

I know I've been a slacker lately. Had a project to do at work that involved a lot of evening work. So, tired equals no creativity. A couple weeks ago I started a journal book and have created part of it but am stumped as to what I want to do next. Oh, well. It'll hopefully come to me. And I still have to make Christmas cards.

Saturday, on the spur of the moment, mom and I decided to drive to North Georgia in search of real cooking pumpkins. There is a flea market that we used to pass all the time that had pumpkins. Thought it was in Georgia but we actually crossed into North Carolina before getting to it. We bought pumpkins from there a few years ago and one of them made the best pumpkin soup ever. Unfortunately the new lady selling them doesn't know anything about which ones are for what. Bought some cooking pumpkins anyway. I'll take a picture of them the next time I'm home when it's daylight out. Here are some pictures from our half day trip. We didn't really stop anywhere since we didn't leave early enough but did manage a few.

My Friday...

Ahhhh......(long long heavy sigh), today is my Friday. I'm so looking forward to a real weekend. Tomorrow starts with a couple of hours at Archivers for a new class on making a household organizer. Just some nice play time for me. Then it's some quality cooking time with making home made smoked pulled pork.

Saturday I get to spend the whole day playing with my friends and being creative. I'm hosting a scrapbook party at my house and hopefully everyone will have a good time. Can't imagine that we won't.

Last weekend I took a little time playing with altering photos. I didn't do much but cropped, applied sepia tones and film grain to a picture from the rose bush at the front door. I think I like the effect. Next maybe altering colors.

Ah, It's the weekend...

Why are weekends never long enough? It doesn't look like I will get to anything fun this weekend. I have lovely plans of cleaning and organizing and doing work stuff. Next weekend I'll get to have some fun though with the girls. We will get to spend a whole day of scrapbooking and being creative.

I did have one neat event this week. I've made it to 50 pounds lost. I'm slowly seeing some of the ways my life will change for the better. I still haven't met my goal of working out 3-4 times a week but I will persist. I am seeing that I have more energy and can definitely move better. I so look forward to learning to be more active. Now, how to fit that in with photography and my dream of becoming a mixed medium artist.

Last night was the last night of my photography 102 class. It was fun to learn more about how to use manual settings on the camera. I also had the opportunity to see my classmates' works. Definitely very talented people. I've learned that it's more about the composition and you will learn how to use the camera to capture what you visualize. I'm looking forward to playing with learning how to alter photographs too. Below are some I took with my macro lens and I've cropped them to give them more focus. I promise there will be some more handmade stuff soon. Hope you enjoy!

Taking pictures again...

Well, this weekend was a very busy one. Saturday was up bright and early to meet up with Rebecca to go to Jonathan Mann's very first birthday. He was so adorable as he opened all his presents and you could tell he enjoyed it.

Sunday was up bright and early again to meet a friend down at Oakland Cemetery for a morning of taking pictures. I don't think I was in quite the right mood to do good compositions but I managed to take some I liked. Here a few of my favorites and the rest are on Picasa Web at http://picasaweb.google.com/laenglehardt/OaklandCemetery. Hope you enjoy them. Oh, and by the way, cemeteries are not creepy places, they are monuments to the memories of those who have gone before us.

Walking about ...

Friday after work I walked around down here at Atlantic Station and took a few photographs. I was trying to hold out for the sunset but got tired of waiting. That and the security guards were freaking out every time I took pictures. Aparently you can't take pictures of the buildings. They were okay once I explained it was just elements for class but I really wanted to setup my tripod so I could get better pictures but I thought that would throw them over the edge.

A Man's perspective...

This is just too funny. I saw a link to this video on one of the technical blogs I watch and I just can't help but post a link to it. Ladies, for all you card makers out there, this is a glimpse into a man's view.

Man Made Card

A little sadness...

I have two cats who are basically my children. One is Scooter, the grey and white rough and tumble boy. The other is my very sweet Becca, who passed away last Friday morning. I've had her for 18 or 19 years so she lived to a ripe old age and her body was done. I will miss her terribly.

It's been too long...

Each weekend I promise myself that I will post something but so far I've failed. So, I'm at work eating my lunch and posting finally.

So, let's see, a couple weeks ago it was time for the Yellow Daisy Festival at Stone Mountain. We had a slight cool spell so it was actually a pleasant day for it. Mom and my friend Renee joined me for a full day of it. Lots of fun things to look at and some not so interesting things. Some years there is more artwork but this year wasn't as good. I did really enjoy the featured artist of the year, Vikki Mancil Weigel. I purchase a little piece of art from her of a joyful girl hanging from a red flower. It really spoke to me. I wish she had a picture of it on her site but you can see her style of art at http://www.vikkipaints.com/.

The time after that I worked on creating a birthday card for my brother. He turned 40 this year which kind of snuck up on me. I decided to do some thing silly and started with the idea of a 12 x 12 card which blossomed into a 12 x 12 "mini" album. Took me a day just to dig through all the old photos and confine myself to a few of them to bring back fond memories. Here is the end result.

Here is Scott having some fun while he is feeling no pain

and here he is being put to bed

more pics if you want to see

So, a good time was had by all. Oh, and I learned an important lesson with the flash. Don't aim it up when you have no idea what you are doing. That caused the strange glow towards the top of th ceiling over everybodies heads. Was trying not to flash it in everyone's eyes. So I see I need to read the book again on aiming the flash.