My blogging space

This week’s Fun Monday host is Gattina at Writer Cramps. She wants us to show a photo of our blogging place. I bailed out of last week’s Fun Monday (sorry to our friends at Mama Drama), because I didn’t have sufficient brain power to come up with an answer to their question. But I think this topic I can do. 🙂 You may have noticed that I enjoy taking photographs.

My blogging space isn’t much to look at. Usually, the computer sits on my lap while I’m sitting on the love seat. This week, however, I’ve been sick with a sinus infection and double ear infection (ouchie). Yesterday, when I wrote this, I didn’t feel well enough to compute. Or at least not well enough to compute sitting up. (I don’t know which is sadder — that I don’t feel well enough to compute or that I still do it, but lying down.)

So with that in mind, I give you My Blogging Space: The Sick Edition.

This is me, LYING on the love seat with the computer on my legs.

Pitiful, isn’t it?

Now get thee to Gattina’s to see some non-sick people’s blogging spaces. 🙂

When did you start your blog?

Today’s Fun Monday is being hosted by Lisa at Lisa’s Chaos. She’s asked us to ask a question for our readers to answer.

My question? When did you start your blog?

Nothing hard or particularly creative, but I’m curious how long people have been blogging.

I can’t wait to read your answers!

My favorite photo of the last year

Today’s Fun Monday is being hosted by The Lurchers. The assignment is to show our favorite photo and tell why it’s our favorite.

It’s been a year since we got our new camera. Getting a digital SLR, which I’d wanted for YEARS, is what I consider the rebirth of my lifetime love affair with photography.

I’ve taken most of the 40,000+ photos we’ve put on the camera. So I’m going to tell you my favorite photo from the last year. Well, to be more specific, I’m going to tell you my favorite photo since mid-October, when I got a Flickr page.

This was HARD. I can remember taking most of the photos, so deciding felt like choosing a favorite child must feel.

I could have picked the yellow flowers. The trip we were on when I took it was the first time I really started using the manual settings on my camera.

The photo of Stone Mountain Lake in February was one of the first times I got down on the ground to get the shot.

The photo of Ed taken last October at Irene’s was a first time I’d taken photos of people and was pleased with the result.

The photo of the tight rope walker was a first attempt at shooting an “event.”

But I’m not choosing any of those. Instead I chose the photo of the pinwheels.

It’s my favorite because I wanted to capture the pinwheels spinning and figured out how to get the shot. It’s my favorite because i noticed the “still” pinwheel amid all the spinning ones and framed the shot well. It’s my favorite because I didn’t crop it, color correct it, do anything to it.

But mainly it’s my favorite because it makes me HAPPY to look at it. And isn’t evoking an emotion the point of photography? I think so.

Oh, if you’re curious, I had my husband look at my finalists, because I was curious what his favorite was. He mentioned the photo of Fox barking, the swan swimming away from the camera, and the ponytail grass and yellow yarrow. But his favorite was the mother and baby goose.

Fun Monday: favorite words

This week’s Fun Monday host is Mothers of Brothers. The topic is favorite words.

I ADORE words, but I’m unable to come up with many “favorites.” I’d like to think this means I’m more concerned about the message I’m portraying with my words, rather than just knowing and using big words. It’s just as likely I’m having a massive brain cramp. 🙂

Moving on…

All definitions are from Merriam-Webster.com.

• conundrum — “an intricate and difficult problem.”
• behoove — “to be necessary, proper, or advantageous for <it behooves us to go>”
• dearth — “an inadequate supply : lack <a dearth of evidence>”
• bereft (this is one my husband reminded me of) — “lacking something needed, wanted, or expected —used with of<the book is…completely bereft of an index”

I’m sure I’ll think of more favorites after this is published, but them’s the breaks. 🙂

So tell us all some of your favorite words.

Careers — Then and Now

Irish Coffeehouse is hosting this week’s Fun Monday.

The topic is a GREAT one: careers — then and now: what we wanted to be when we grew up and what we’d do NOW if we had our druthers.

What I Wanted to Be When I Grew Up (the childhood version)

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a number of things. The two I can best remember are teacher and news anchor.

The first I still think I’d be good at. The second? Not so much. (WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?)

I went to college to study media communications. I was still following — at least vaguely — the news anchor dream. This didn’t last long. By the spring of my freshman year, I decided to focus on production aspects, particularly producing. I still had t.v. news in mind. (WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?)

My sophomore year, while working on a story for the campus newspaper, I realized what I REALLY should be doing was studying journalism. I called the person who would end up being my adviser and told him I thought I needed to add journalism as a major. His response? “I think that would be a good idea.”

My first clue that journalism was a better fit than media communications should have been the fact that I didn’t have a CLUE why people in my media communications major (primarily older than I was) were so freaked out by a class called Writing and Reporting the News. The professor (the previously mentioned future adviser) was known to be tough, and he made people have a lot of sources for the stories we wrote. (The HORROR!) In high school, I had to have answers to 50 questions for any newspaper story I wrote. What was the problem with having to have lots of sources?

I took my journalism classes and media communications classes and graduated with a double major. At the end of my second internship at a t.v. station about 25 miles from my college, I ended up deciding that t.v. news was not for me. I knew that if I produced t.v. news I’d end up like Miles from Murphy Brown, swilling Maalox constantly. This realization came RIGHT before graduation. Good timing, no?

After college I worked for three years at a sports news network in the video tape library. That particular job was far from Maalox worthy, but it still wasn’t for me. For almost 8 years since then I’ve been working for the magazine of a professional society. The second job is a MUCH better fit. 🙂

That said, I still don’t know if journalism/publishing is what I want to be “when I grow up.” I say I’m only 33, so I have at least 20 years to decide.

This leads me to…

What I Would Like to Be When I Grow Up (the adult version)

If I could do anything “when I grow up,” I’d do something in the baby business: be a midwife, a doula, a lactation consultant. I’m not sure which of the three, exactly, but I have a lot of fun dreaming. 🙂

Go here for more Fun Monday posts and to sign up yourself.

Fish stories…

I had so much fun participating in last week’s Fun Monday at Lisa’s place.

After having such a good time, I signed up to participate in this week’s Fun Monday being hosted at U R Olive. The topic is fish stories. I thought she meant tall tales. But she meant stories about fishing in honor of the United States’ Fourth of July holiday.

Um. I don’t fish.

BUT then I remembered that I DID fish VERY occasionally, ending about 25 years ago. So I present to you my one and only fish story.

Some quick background… When my parents were at one of the first churches to which my dad was appointed they met Jim and Kathleen. They cooked my parents a steak dinner when they announced their pregnancy with me and, two and a half years later, with my sister. We were all so close that I didn’t realize they weren’t related to me until I was in my early teens. (Nevermind.)

Anyway, they lived on a lake and had a boat, and Jim was a BIG fisherman. He had some of his biggest catches mounted and everything. (I was fascinated by those fish.) In Georgia, children can fish without a license, and I would BEG him to take me fishing. I don’t think he took me often, but I remember one time when SOMEONE caught a lot of fish. I don’t think it was me. But we had one of those mesh thingies that we put the fish in after we unhooked it and put it back in the water. Therefore, the fish would be alive until we got done and were ready to clean them — or release them, whatever the case might be. I was completely entranced by watching the fish flail wildly when I pulled the fish out of the water. I knew fish out of water weren’t happy fish, but I just couldn’t help myself. We did release those fish, and I think some of them were a bit on the unhealthy side when we did. 😦

This is one of those stories that doesn’t have a “tidy” way to end it, because I can’t remember much else about the day.

I guess I’m not that good at telling fish stories.

Or am I?

🙂

Quirks — I have a few…

Lisa at Lisa’s Chaos is hosting Fun Monday this week. I’m not sure exactly what Fun Monday IS or who started it and why.

But this week’s topic, quirks, got my attention, so I thought I’d play.

A quirk is defined as a peculiarity of action, behavior, or personality; mannerism. Yes, it would be easier to tell you what’s NORMAL about me. 🙂 I’ll give listing some of my quirks a shot, though. Let’s see.

I can see things such as a cool shadow on the wall…

…but not the fact that a friend has had 8 inches cut off her straight hair.

Yeah. Very observant. NOT! 🙂

I can’t stand the sound of those tape dispensers one uses to tape up moving boxes. This has a lot to do with the fact that we moved every few years when I was a kid. But I don’t know of anyone else who actually shudders when hearing one.

I can discuss all sorts of gross things, but I gag if someone even TALKS about putting more than two marshmallows in his or her mouth. (I like marshmallows, though.)

I know a TON about pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding and child rearing, but we don’t have kids or plan on having any.

There are lots more, but I’d like to keep a shred of dignity. 😉

So tell me. What are some of YOUR quirks?