w.o.k. wednesday: the rink

Okay, first I feel the need to type a bit of a mea culpa for being such a terribly bad, awful, neglectful blogger and not posting anything since FebruaryFlippin'24th. Let's just say time in general has been escaping me lately and leave it at that (M53, stop that snickering).

So, I'm hoping to create today's post in two parts, because I haven't yet taken the pictures I want to post here. Here are some hints, though. The lighting will be funky, and there will be ice involved. It will be a good lesson in indoor lighting with the D80, so hopefully I'll get some decent shots.

My daughter will be finishing up her first session of ice skating lessons this evening, and I've promised her McDonald's afterward as a special treat. The thought makes me visibly shudder, prissy food purist that I've become. But she's been working really hard at conquering her solo skating fears, and she really wants the Littlest Pet Shop Gray Squirrel that McD's is apparently giving away with the Happy Meal. So, it's a done deal.

Son will be thrilled, too. Not enough kids signed up for his skating level, so he has basically spent every Wednesday evening for the past several weeks doing free-skate. He's a mini Evil Knievel out there: Couldn't care less about splattering on the ice like a starfish dropped from the Empire State Building - just scrambles back up and off he goes. Ah, for those rubbery bones of youth.

So, check back later to see what Nikon and I were able to come up with.Follow @nicole_mcinnes

oh, the beautiful smallness

I am so inspired by this Nikon Photomicrography - and it's a contest, no less. I could easily wallpaper entire rooms with some of these lovely organic patterns.

And while I don't have the equipment necessary to get into this type of shutterbugging, the D-80 and I have been playing around a bit with distance and movement in recent months. In August, for instance, I was driving out to the prairie house when I looked up and spotted this Red-tailed hawk atop a windmill (at least I'm pretty sure it's a RTH - any birders want to correct me?). I high-tailed it home, grabbed the camera and drove back to the spot with my fingers crossed, trying to switch lenses while I steered around the potholes in the horrendous cinder road. Luckily, the hawk was still there, and I was back in time to get some shots of its perching and its flight.

Okay, so I don't expect National Geographic to start knocking on my door any time soon (other than to ask me to renew my subscription - lol), but in my defense I was working on the spur of the moment and without a tripod.

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home on the range

Lest y'all think I was exaggerating about the antelope outside our kitchen window yesterday. They returned in the afternoon - even closer to the house this time - so I grabbed the camera. (I'm jonesing for that 70-200 mm lens I've been eyeballing.) I wonder if we'll get to see any antelope babies soon...or maybe they give birth in the fall. I'm really not sure.







Here's another local photo op that presented itself yesterday in front of the feed store. I like the idea of fall encased in winter (onto which an early spring will hopefully soon open up a can of whupass).

In other news: If you haven't yet wandered over to the dysfunctional housewife's blog to read her harrowing installments of what it means to be a "lost girl" growing up, you're really missing out. How in the world was I to know that such literary talent lived just a stone's throw from my house?Follow @nicole_mcinnes

early harbingers of spring

This was the view from our kitchen window this morning It's finally warmed up enough to snow (night time temps were dipping well below zero earlier in the week), so now there's this vast and lovely white quilt outside. The roundpen in the foreground was built by my husband out of aspen poles that he cut and hauled from the north rim of the Grand Canyon years ago, and it's one of my favorite photography subjects.

Speaking of photography, I think I've changed my mind about the camera I want to buy now that my old trusty Kodak DX3900 is gasping for its last breath. For a while my mind was set on this one, but after some research, I've discovered that this one looks like a better value overall. Of course, it's a moot point until I actually have the money to buy it, but it's making me crazy not to have a good quality, reliable camera for capturing those fleeting kid moments.

And speaking of the man, today is his birthday, which means that for the next three months we are the same age (the downside, of course, being that for the next three months I don't get to sleep with a younger man). Dad's birthday also = the kids and I getting busy with art supplies - making cards and writing stories. The girl suprised me this week by not only making her first batch of cookies (I found her in the kitchen mixing up ingredients with the play cooking set she got from Grandpa and Granni for Christmas), but by writing her first book! She's a chip off the old block (if I had suspenders I'd hook my thumbs proudly in the straps).

The story is called "The Red Snake and the Evil Purple Scales, Written by Mr. Apple." There are no actual words, of course, but she tells the story the exact same way every time she "reads" the illustrations. I'm always relieved to hear that everything turns out well in the end for the red snake and his brothers and sisters, especially after that run-in with those awful scales (disguised as rocks), and the smoke that makes all the snake siblings run away. The whole ordeal those poor creatures go through reminds me a little of how this month has gone. But now the sun is starting to elbow those storm clouds aside, the Valentine chocolates are stacked high on grocery store shelves, and the Scottsdale Arabian Show is right around the corner. These are the signs I look for to tell me that, someday soon, this winter, too, shall pass.

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