Day 8: Harvest

The cherries were ripe earlier in the summer, but I won't forget the magical afternoon my family and I spent under my parents' cherry tree in Wisconsin. Even with the birds having a feast, there were plenty of bright red tart cherries to make pies and cobbler. Yum!

My son, the tree climber, shimmied up high into the branches as my mother and I half-heartedly chided him to come down. Another son used a ladder to reach the juiciest fruits. The birds chattered overheard, scolding us to get away from their giant buffet. We ignored them, chattering amongst ourselves as 3 generations filled their buckets with the plentiful yield.

If I took a picture today of what my harvest looks like, it would be a virtual field of kale. I have so much kale in my back yard garden! But I couldn't resist this shot of the bright red cherries for Day 8 of the 30 Day Holiday Photo Challenge.

Day 7: Water

Yesterday was the highly contested presidential election. My husband and I, newshounds, have had voices in our heads for months as we listened to pundits, journalists and the candidates themselves keep us up to date on every second of a long, tiring campaign. By yesterday, my stomach was in knots thinking about the possibilities of the results, and what might happen afterwards. Memories came back of the recount in 2000 that kept our country in limbo for 37 days. I knew I didn't want to go through that again.

Our instantaneous culture of today is not accustomed to waiting. But yesterday, I voted around noon, then switched on the radio to hear the news. The stump speeches had stopped, and the same negative campaign ads I'd heard over and over even sounded half-hearted to me yesterday. We were all exhausted and ready for this to be over. I switched off the radio. There really wouldn't be any new news until after the polls closed at 7 p.m.

After I picked up my son from school, he asked if he could borrow my camera. The two of us went to our back yard, where a gentle rain had been falling. It was quiet outside, and we both watched water droplets as they slowly slid down leaves, or hung in suspended animation off of our patio furniture.

Photo by Reese, age 8

Photo by Distracted Mommy

I think most people would say they don't like waiting. We all want everything nownownownownownow. But yesterday, after a long and tiring campaign, I savored the waiting. For a few hours yesterday afternoon, anything was possible, nobody knew all the answers, and I listened to the quiet.

I wish all of you some moments of quiet expectation!

Day 6: Action

Today's theme for the 30 Day Holiday Photo Challenge is Action. I knew I could count on my active household to put forth a photo opp sooner rather than later. If it's one thing I can depend on in my house, it's that something will get broken, someone will cry, and someone will hit their brother. Okay, that's three things. But it all boils down to action. This morning, my bedroom was bathed in morning sunlight and I stripped off the sheets from our bed and threw them in the washer. Immediately, my daughter and our new kitten, Dewey, saw the stripped bed as an opportunity for a quick morning wrestling match, and I got this shot:

 

For such a sweet little kitten, he has killer hunting instincts. His poor little teddy bear got a couple fangs to the jugular on this one.

Have a great day, everyone!

Day 5: Macro

I'd had my coffee, and I stared at my living room floor and sighed. It's overcast, I'm not as perky as I'd like to feel after gaining an hour for the end of Daylight Savings Time, and my house looks like a disaster area.

But I'm easily distracted, and instead of grabbing my vacuum cleaner, I grabbed my camera off the hook.

Despite the gloomy overcast sky, some of my daughter's dress up beads lay on the floor in a heap, catching the light in a beautiful way. It reminds me to look at the toys strewn on the floor not as a "mess," but as a sign that I have happy children in the house who are constantly creating and imagining.

After having three sons, our house was bursting with Legos and Star Wars. Bringing my daughter home from the hospital was like introducing a wave of pink into our house, sprinkled with a little fairy dust. Five years later, the pinkwash is still in full force. So today I used the "Macro" theme to give myself the excuse to get down on the floor and see my house from my kids' perspective.

Want to join the Photo Challenge? It's not too late! Visit DeBie Hive for details!

November Photo Challenge

November is not quite the month full of eye candy that October is. Things are getting brown and dull around here, and there are a lot of cloudy, sunless days. My blog has been dormant, and I'm trying to break myself out of the funk.

Lucky for me, I found DeBie Hive, a great blog—written by a mother of four living in Colorado. This month, she has a 30 Day Holiday Photo Challenge and I'm jumping on the bandwagon.

And as always, I'm late to the game. I missed the first 3 days: Fantasy, Create and Season. But I'm not looking back! For Day 4, Light, I posted my photo from my post, For the Love of October. I love the way the light can make you take a second look at things you take for granted.

So, here's hoping this month's photo challenge wakes up my mind. I'm grabbing my camera, and opening my eyes.