focus

i'm out of focus.

it wasn't until recently that i started to notice. there were little signs all around me...hinting at something brewing - warning me to stop and pay attention.........complaining became the norm. energy waned. tempers flared. patience lessened. everything was a blur.

but intertwined within those moments were glimmers too - tiny moments of clarity reminding me that my lens can be adjusted - and the fuzzy can once again become clear.

my camera however is my journal....using pen on paper - not a keyboard. when i need to regroup i need to be unplugged....to focus on the glimmers and forget the rest. even though it seems these times are bad - i actually enjoy them. they are a gift. a second (or third or fourth!) chance to change attitudes and situations.....a time to refocus.

graveyard walk

i really enjoy people watching...watching their expressions when talking, observing their interactions when they don't know i'm watching - and esp when they do.........wondering why that person is alone or if that couple is on a first date - happily married - or going through the motions. i'm too chicken to actually take pictures of them....afraid they'll catch me and ask me why i am taking their picture......what would i tell them? you are just so fascinating at this moment that i want to capture your posture or your face or your feeling? i only have regular old digital camera too - so i can't even take shots of people too far away to notice me. besides - i think people are more likely to cut a person with a fancier - high tech camera more seriously as a photographer and not assume they are a stalker!

graveyards fascinate me. not the big perfectly manicured ones....but the old, rundown forgotten ones next to buildings that may or may not be still in use. i am not obsessed with death or dying....but at times i find myself obsessing on my role on this earth. i remember once being asked to write my own epithet. i thought long and hard about it and wrote something along the lines of wonderful wife and mother to 2 amazing sons..........yadda yadda. after proudly sharing my writing brilliance - our leader looked at me right in the eye and asked why did i want to be remembered as someone else's something or other? where was *i* in that epithet?

wow

up until that point i really never considered that i could leave my own legacy - and not latch on to those around me. i stammered and really thought about it - and at that time i could not figure out how i wanted to be remembered.

walking though the graveyards today i read the first word on the gravestones. some had the person's name. others started with daughter or father or beloved mother.....

i wondered if these people had any say in how their gravestone would read. did they want to be remembered as a person first? or were they happy to be remembered first by their role?

and what about their spot in the cemetery? some areas were filled with rows of markers. other areas had them scattered here and there. there were clusters under trees and along the stone walls and/or by gates - were they the prized spots.....offering shade to those underneath or a quick peek to drivers or walkers passing by?

for some - like my parents - where they are buried is of the utmost importance. they want to be in a mausoleum surrounded by their family....and by family i don't mean with my brother and myself - which i thought was funny.....but instead with their siblings and cousins (their parents are buried in italy) right now they visit their deceased family members - comforted by having a place to go to spend time with them. it is a beautiful thing to have such a place to visit - however it is your loved one is remembered....but then what happens 200 years from now?

who will come to your grave? how will you be remembered? will you even be remembered?

i don't have the answers to these questions and quite frankly i really don't think too much about it. i will admit that the gloomy autumn days and the celebration of all hallows eve lend themselves perfectly to thinking more about it. but i do think about my epithet once in awhile - usually when i am on the cusp of yet another level of self awareness. i still don't know would say - but one thing i do know is that i am important enough to have it be about me and not my role. i think that is hard for many women to admit or believe. maybe it comes with wisdom - the wisdom of living life. and sometimes you get that wisdom by visiting the dead.

caramel apples and pumpkin carving

this weekend was my sil's annual pumpkin carving party. we look forward to it every year and the competition has become quite fierce.

this year i wanted to bring caramel apples. i didn't want to just melt kraft caramels - i wanted to make my own caramel. there are only a few ingredients (and wow are the ingredients not for the faint of heart) so i figured how hard could it be. plus i had a candy thermometer sitting in my drawer for years just waiting to be used for something like this. so if you are interested in trying this follow these simple steps.............

step 1:

brave the rain and make a special trip to your local-ish farmers market to buy the sweetest - most delicious apples you could find.

step 2:

find the cutest kid you can find to help cut the twigs for the stems.

luckily i found this 6 year old looking for work.

step 3:

dump 3 different kinds of sugar and some cream into a pot. clip your candy thermometer to the side of the pot. if you notice i don't have my candy thermometer clipped to the side of the pot. that is because when i pulled it out (after years of having it in my drawer) it was broken!!!!! so i quickly googled "how to make caramel without a candy thermometer" (this is why everyone should have a computer in the kitchen) and set about trying to make caramel the old fashioned way.

step 4:

set your heat to medium high and wait until your caramel reaches around 270 degrees. here is where there was some confusion. 270 degrees is hard ball stage yet caramel is supposed to be in the firm ball stage........so basically i had to wing it and decide that when the caramel looked like this - it was done...........

step 5:

once you have caramel (or in my case *think* you have caramel) gather some really bad for you items to roll your apples in......

and get your little helper to start dipping.

step 6:

cleverly arrange your apples on a bed of leaves and pat yourself on the back for just how darn good they look!

BUT how did they taste????

its hard to say - mainly b/c the caramel had hardened so much that it was impossible to take a bite out of the apple. they had to be thrown into the microwave just to soften the caramel enough to cut the apple! but - i do know that once you stuck that piece of caramel into your mouth - where it softened into the gooey caramel it was supposed to be - it was good........

moral of the story? make sure you have a candy thermometer

then it was on to pumpkin carving............pumpkins were everywhere, seeds and strings were everywhere...and there was plenty of trash talk. where were the kids? they haven't developed the level of competiton the adults have - so they made themselves scarce......

here is my pumpkin. believe me it looks better in the picture then it did in real life. i combined 2 ideas without thinking it through and wish i would have made the windows more intricate b/c as it stands they were just 2 big holes show casing a too small vulture.

here are the other ones. the winner was the mummy on the bottom row - last one. this year was the first time we had a really hard time choosing a winner. we have already begun planning our pumpkin entries for next year.



it was such a great time shared with family and friends. this year we added another family and they brought a friend who will be going to college next year. she said she is coming again next year. i don't blame her.

Wordless Wednesday - Autumn at the Lake

outside my windshield

some days i feel like i am always in the car

driving here or there

following the same route

over and over again

country roads are hypnotic

most of the time i am driving on auto pilot

aware only enough to notice the squirrel darting out in front of me

or the beginning notes of a favorite song on the radio

main roads surround our country ones

and daily i find myself driving on them too

welcome to suburbia

while driving yesterday i realized that along my usual routes

are points of interest

places i always find myself looking

seeking out the beauty in the mundane

the break in the routine

some of the images aren't necessarily pretty

like this refrigerator in the middle of a yard

this is where i get my eggs

when my mom chicken's aren't producing as much

but i do love driving into this yard

i have no idea who lives here

i just leave money in a can and drive away

or this overpass

its a very dangerous curve

and everytime i go under it

i wonder who wisely wrote SLOW!

and how did they do it?

i look forward to these quick images

the ones i see through my windshield

its comforting to know they are there

waiting to greet me as i pass

Weekend wrap up

friday and saturday were as miserable as was predicted - sunless, cold and rainy. sunday looked to be a wash out too. the morning started out the same way as the other two days - but by the afternoon the rain had cleared and the temperature started to rise....

just in time for an evening cubscout hayride at a local farm....

and a bonfire complete with smores made from the yummiest local chocolate wafers

provided by a scout family from their very own chocolate shop.

sadly, i don't think i can use plain old hershey's bars ever again......

while we didn't get to enjoy the entire weekend...i am thankful for the part of it that we did.

fridays by the fire........

doing homework ain't so bad..............................by a fire