Puh..ppuh..put 'em up!

C'mon! I can fight ya with both paws tied behind my back!

Here is your weekly kitty picture.

You're welcome.

Love/Hate

Love performing.

Hate memorizing lines.

Got to take the good with the not so good sometimes.

Variations in Tie-Dye

Tie-Dyed for the first time since high school or college.

At any rate it has been a long time.

Felt it was time to teach the children a new skill.

All were pleased with the outcome of their experiment with dye and rubber bands.

Just Hanging Around

At the park.

I like the sunbeams.

Puzzling

Working on a puzzle that will look like the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover.

Oh S%$#!

So.....anyone know how to get ballpoint pen ink out of the inside of a dryer?

I Coulda Used a Lasso Today

I have been so productive this week, but tonight I hit the wall.

Tonight, I watch TV and drink milk out of a Wonder Woman glass.

Tomorrow, I pick up where I left off.

I Sense a Theme Here

Three guesses about what we are doing this week at Chez Babble.

As always the first two don't count.

Hott!

My man has a vacuum and he knows how to use it.

Notice the furniture polish on the dresser next to him.

He used that too.

Whew! Is it hott in here?

Grooming Time

BH asked if I was becoming the lady who only takes pictures of her cats.

NO!

Just today.

Sad that I managed to cut off most of one cat's face, but I liked the grooming action captured here.

I had a title for this shot that was funny, but sadly would likely send all sorts of the wrong kind of hits to my blog.

Cookie Cookie Cookie Starts with C

I had not done any food photography yet, so naturally I thought, "My first food photo should be of the prepackaged break and bake cookies we made tonight."

Not as good as my Kick Ass Chocolate Chip Cookies, but will do in a pinch.

Now I am off to eat!

Tats and Chucks

It took me about 400,000 shots before I got one that I kind of sort of liked.

I don't like that the colors of the Tats and Chucks are not obvious here, but other shots were too shadowy.

Anyway I guess now my secret is out. I am a Chucks wearing tattooed lady.

Glimpse

Most of you know I am a therapist

I work primarily with children and families.

When I am working with a young child I draw faces as seen in this picture to help the child identify and express emotion. The child circles the face(s) that best represent how they are feeling that day.

This picture shows how I am feeling today.

Not the Recommended Dosage

This pile of pills represents the amount of Ibuprofen I felt like taking to combat my headache.

In reality I only took 3.

Unfortunately the headache continues, worse than before the medication.

Thus concludes my whining session.

Feel free to carry on with your regularly scheduled business.

Fuzzy on Fuzzy

So winter decided to appear today.

I chose to respond by putting fuzzy socks on over my regular socks, then encasing those socks in my super fancy fuzzy Christmas slippers.

Then I chose to take a suggestion by Anonymous and shoot in A mode.

Wonder what tomorrow's photo will bring....

Crafty

#1 and I decided that we needed a craft night.

Here is what I worked on

Here is #1's project

#1 isn't too fond of having her picture taken, so we'll just include her sweet, now nearly adult sized hand.

Indecision

Since it apparently is never going to actually be winter here in the Sunflower State, we decided to take advantage of the 60+ degree weather today and do a little hiking.

I remembered to bring my camera and took a crapload of photos.

I had some trouble deciding which one to post today.

So I asked BH to choose.

He had trouble and suggested I put it to FB for a vote.

None of the photos have gotten more than one vote so far, so I decided to post more than one shot today.

So here are the vote getters:

Now I put it to my 3 blog readers to give their two cents!

39!

BH turned 39 today.

This is his impression of #1 when people sing, "Happy Birthday."

We try not to let very many teasing opportunities go by without recognition here at Chez Babble.

HBD BH!

The Road is Long

That "Mood" I referred to earlier this week?

I hold it responsible for the long road of laundry that I must fold.

Sadly this doesn't show what is in the dryer or what is ready for the washing machine.

This is what my weekend looks like.

Hope yours doesn't include a long road of unfolded laundry.

EXCITED!!

Someone, we'll call her #2 is super excited because she was cast in a local community theatre production!

Losta theatre goins on at Chez Babble these days.

This was the photo I wanted to take yesterday, but got sidelined by "THE MOOD."

Phoning it in

I have been in a bit of a mood this evening, and forgot to take the photo I planned.

So I decided to phone it in.

Also, obviously I tried out black and white.

For no particular reason.

I blame it on the Mood.

Northland

northland/n. the northern part of a country (Definition courtesy of the Microsoft College Dictonary)

Today I was fresh out of ideas for photos. Coming up with ideas every day for the next year is going to be hard, if I may state the obvious.

I turned to my ever helpful Facebook community, and my friend from the FilthEDesign blog, suggested that I turn to a page in the dictionary, choose a word and then take a picture that shows my interpretation of the word. I thought that sounded like a fine idea.

I often think of North as being up. If fact that is the first thing that comes to mind when I hear or see the word North.

The land (or country if you prefer to go with the true definition of the word) I was in at the time was my bedroom.

Thus my photographic interpretation of Northland. What I saw when I looked up in my bedroom.

I took this shot very quickly on auto-mode tonight. I only enhanced a bit and did some cropping.

I rather enjoy what I see as a very slightly moody ceiling fan. Not at all displeased with my slightly quirky photo.

Enjoy.

Cute Cat, Crap Picture

Since it has only been a week, I thought it high time I come out about my photography frustration.

I think I just try too hard sometimes.

I wanted to capture our cat in her preferred napping spot, which is behind our fake radiator space heater.

Couldn't get it all in like I wanted so I gave up and got this truly amateurish photo as a result.

Cat is cute tho.

Patient too.

My Other Goal

I figure that if I can do at least one status update a day on Facebook actually writing one line about my day in a paper journal should be pretty do-able.

Getting Happy in 2012

So BlogHer has asked me to answer a question on my little ol' blog here about what I plan to do to get Happy in 2012.

(Does anyone else have the the theme song to the Partridge Family in their head now? No? Just me? Well I will HAPPILY enjoy this little ear worm all on my own.)

As a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor I spend a fair amount of time discussing the idea of being happy. I spend a lot of time working to help other people feel happier than they did when they first walked in to my office (hopefully).

As a wife and mother I spend a fair amount of my non-working time trying to assure that the people in my home are happy.

What I don't spend much time on is my personal happiness.

Like anyone else I think about what makes or would make me feel happy. However, I am much more likely to put my own get happy pursuits aside so that I can attend to the happiness pursuits of others.

The above mentioned practice can bite one in the butt from time to time.

In 2011 I was not particularly inclined to make up yet another set of resolutions or goals that I wasn't likely to keep. Of course I need to eat better , exercise more, be more patient, blah blah blah. I just was not feeling the self-improvement thing AT ALL.

I had decided to forgo resolutions in 2011.

Then I ha a manicure on January 1, 2011. It made me very happy.

So right then and there I decided my new years resolution was to have my nails done twice a month. Only resolution I have ever kept.

A couple of days after the start of 2012, I got the e-mail asking me to write a post on what I was going to do to get happy in 2012.

My first thought, "I have no idea, so can I have a different question please?"

Then, I let the question percolate for a bit. Spent some quality time thinking about when I am the most happy. That led to me thinking about the resolutions I had made for myself this year, and the one successful resolution I kept the previous year.

I based this year's resolution loosely on the success of keeping the one from the previous year. I kept the 2011 resolution because it because it was fun, relaxing, just for me, and made me feel happy.

I started thinking more about what makes me happy in general. This led to the realization that I am most happy when I am learning something. I love to learn. It makes me happy and fulfilled to gain new skills. Since finishing graduate school and working on building my career as a therapist I have spent a lot of time focusing my learning on how to continue to be a better and more effective therapist. I have a crazy long alphabet soup list of initials after my name showing off all the additional credentials I have earned since finishing my MA. After I finished the requirements for the most recent addition to my credential collection, I looked at that crazy long list, and decided that perhaps it was time to cool my jets on the credentials front for a while.

That idea sent me into a bit of a tailspin. I was like an academic Scarlett O'Hara after Rhett told her he was out of there. "Whatever will I do? What shall I learn? How am I supposed to be functioning without some big career/academic related goal looming in the distance?"

So being a good therapist I processed my thoughts and feelings for awhile, and finally hit on the idea that perhaps I could now focus on learning some things that were just for my own pleasure, and had no ties whatsoever to credentials, academics, or career.
All those things I have said for years that I would like to learn how to do.

Huh.

I really liked this line of thinking.

So I picked one. I wanted to learn how to be a better photographer and make use of the fancy camera I purchased for myself almost two years ago, and still use as though it was a disposable point and shoot.

I decided that was going to be my goal for the new year.

That initially was as far as I got. Y'know the holidays are busy, I kinda had a crappy month of December, blah blah blah.

Then a few days before the New Year, a friend posted on Facebook that he was going to do Project 365, which involves taking a picture every day for a year. He was challenging others to join him.

I thought about it for about 10 seconds and agreed right there in front of everyone on Facebook that I would take a picture every day in the year 2012 AND to sweeten the deal I would post those daily pictures on my blog!

After a moment of thinking, "Oh crap, I will NEVER keep up with this!" I shrugged off the negative and got really excited about the prospect. I felt...wait for it.....

HAPPY!

This was a fun resolution! I was going to love it! Hooray!

One week in and I am keeping up nicely. My goal for the first was to focus on just getting the picture taken every day. Soon I will move in to learning and trying out new photography skills and I am really enthused about the prospect!

So in a nutshell, to get happy in 2012 I am learning for just me, myself, and I.

I encourage all of you to process the thought, "What makes me truly feel happy?" Then take that newfound or just dusted off information and put it to good use.

I further encourage all of you to share your thoughts and plans in the comments section. See what other people are doing to get happy at the Life Well Lived Blog.

Oh and hey, if getting cool free stuff makes you happy, then I encourage you to hop on over to this link for the Blogher Life Well Lived Sweepstakes and register to win a Kindle Fire.

So this year strive to live up to the Partridge Family theme song and, "C'mon get haaaappppyyyy!"

For the ear worm? You're welcome.

What 17 Years of Marriage Looks Like

Today marks 17 years of marriage for BH and I.

I used the timer on the camera for the first time tonight.

10 seconds is longer than you would think.

I look forward to many more years of snuggling with my favorite husband.

Let Me Tell You About Our $10 Date!

Date Night with the BH. I love gift cards.

Movie, Popcorn, Soda, Dinner, and we only spent $10 out of our own pockets.

Not too shabby.

As for the photo, I think I would like to work on taking better focused close-up shots. For this photo I used some pre-programmed settings for close up objects. Not a terrible picture, but a tad blurry and slightly out of focus. Guess it is time to start reading up on my Digital Photography School stuff.

So far so good with getting at least a photo a day.

Since I tend to be a mostly full disclosure kind of gal, I will admit that I nearly forgot today, what with working and then being out with my best husband.

So I might have been scrambling at 10:00 PM trying to think of and set up a shot.

Maybe.

Pizza with a Zumba Chaser

These are my workout shoes. Tonight they joined me for Zumba.

Pizza doesn't count if you sweat and shake your booty for an hour at a Zumba class afterwards.

Right?

RIGHT?!

C'mon and help a sister stay in denial!

Day 4: Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda

This is the stack of books I SHOULD be reading.

Day 3: I See the Moon and the Moon Sees Me

The alternate title for this picture was, "Patience."

#2 has been very patient awaiting the chance to use the new telescope she got for Christmas. Between the whole family falling ill in the three days that followed Christmas and cloudy night skies, this has been the first opportunity.

Also, focusing a telescope takes time.

I was excited to use Night Mode on the camera, and get a picture that didn't blur since I was too lazy to set up the tripod.

Day 2: How I Spent My Evening

The kids are at Grammy's for the night, so this is how BH and I rocked the night.

Tomorrow I promise to be more creative.

Project 365, or 366, Whichever YOU Prefer!

I decided this year, I will move forward with my goal to learn more about photography. I bought myself a lovely DSLR about a year and a half ago, and I don't know much more about the thing now than I did when I first got it. That is a shame and a waste.

So! A friend mentioned that he was going to partake in project 365 this year and I decided that would be an excellent way for me to get more out of this fancy camera I thought I needed so badly.

I decided to jump right in and took my first photo for the project last night a few minutes after midnight. This picture would be a pretty good example of typical photography for me.

I look forward to (hopefully) more interesting and better quality photos by this time next year!