The Tuesday Trio

I believe my photography is improving~more and more pictures are making it pass my initial pass.  It could be because my discernment is lowering, and maybe it is a little bit of both; either way, the results are that I have more and more photos that I love...making picking and choosing all that much harder.  However, given my lengthy post earlier today, I'm limiting my pictures to 3 for 3 memes.

First, Sweet Shot Tuesday.  So difficult to choose, but I finally settled on this shot of Sunflower.

It is the expression her face is going to have every morning once the boys go back to school next week and she realizes she is home without her brothers and no baby sister.   This week's Texture Tuesday's theme is "Back to School."  The parks are going to be pretty empty during the weekdays once all the schools start running in our area.

Granny's Cupboard -- Overlay 64%  and February Magic Edges -- Screen 70%

Now Sunflower will keep me pretty busy still, but there will be more peace and quiet during the day with the boys gone.  I will miss them, but I like the peace, too.  For some reason rivers always make me think of peace; probably because of all the songs like "peace like a river attendeth my way."

I have found this verse to be very helpful in keeping my tongue in check and my behavior pleasing to God (not always, but more often).  When I remember that I am called to let the peace of Christ rule in my heart, all of a sudden what is the right choice becomes clear~"should I say x?  Will it encourage peace?"  I guess that kind of sounds like "what would Jesus do?" but I find it so much more concrete in certain situations~gossip, yelling at my kids, harboring resentment...none of these indicate that peace is ruling in my heart.  When the peace of Christ is ruling in my heart, I am more content and the focus shifts from "me and my rights" to "others and their needs."  That isn't to say I always succeed, but I do want to always be trying and with the help of God "letting the peace of Christ rule in my heart."

More Mt. Rainier Photos--Monday Rewind

At this point everyone who has been to my blog in the last few weeks know we traveled to the mountains a few times for some family time.

The photo meme, Monday Rewind, over at Chic Homeschool Mama seems like the perfect place to share the last of my photos from Mt. Rainier; you know, those ones that never made it to a post but I want to show someone.  The only problem is, I've already shared a lot of pictures from our camping trip, our day trip, and the beautiful weather, so who wants to see more?  These aren't even the most stunning shots, but in some ways they are still my favorites~because they show that we were there, not just my tripod and camera.  I tried to narrow it down, but this is still a long post.  Sigh.  Once school starts we won't have time to do anything fun, right?  So then I won't have so many pictures, right?

I do love taking pictures of bees, though the flower was completely blown out~thankful for the ability to crop.

Box Canyon

The Grove of the Patriarchs ~ giant trees ie Patriarchs

So this is the only shot with all the kids cooperating, but my husband was losing patience since he'd been in like 30 pictures already.

I did not, did not like this bridge.

Oh!  Are you setting up the tripod for me, Mommy?

No lens hood on my kit 18-55, oops.  I couldn't try again since Sunflower was already getting up to move one.   Not very many flowers on the meadow for August either, grumpy face.

Yes, they are 2 feet away from an edge with no railings.  What?  Does the forest service think we can make safe choices?

Time to go home.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

This was a tough week (prompt wise) for me, so I almost didn't do it, but I just love seeing everyone's interpretations~not that I can't look without playing, but it is more fun to play along!  So here we are...

Geometry:

There are geometric shapes everywhere, but while I was hunting I just kept taking pictures of physics~the leverage my daughter used to move her slide 3 times bigger than her, the physics of an antique car's pistons, the physics of gravity as my son hung upside down, and so on and so on.  We do love math and science at our house.  But finally I settled on the geometry of the wheels of these unicycles (though the physics involved in riding them is fascinating!)

Brushstrokes:

I did get up the courage to ask a few painters at the street fair today if I could take their pictures, but not enough courage to get in their face and do up close of their brushstrokes and take 50 pictures to get exactly the shot I wanted, so you have to be satisfied with my PSE6 image with a Kim Klassen texture.  Baby steps...baby steps.

Hanging by a Thread:

Thread/String what's the difference?

On the Dotted Line:

I know of at least one other blogger that will sympathetically understand why there is the hand of a child on my dotted line.  She wanted to know if we could buy more "marker" eggs; we mark our hard boiled eggs with a marker.

Collage:

I did this collage completely in Lightroom 3 based on this adobe tutorial.  The flexibility and control I have in PSE is great, but the use of cells vs. clipping masks with precisely timed keyboard shortcuts was really much easier.  Then I just printed to a jpg from LR.  (I added the text by adding an identity plate~I think it is only available in the print module so I'm not sure it is too helpful overall.)

I hope you had a fun hunt!  I look forward to visiting your captures.