You Capture: Hopeful

 Photography  29 Responses »
Mar 042010
 

Hope springs eternal. Or, rather, Spring makes me hopeful.

I’m tired of being stuck inside. I’m tired of the snow. I’m tired, mainly. I need fresh air that doesn’t burn my lungs. I need a little more green, it being my favorite color and all. I need more color than various shades of grey. I need Spring.

I’ve been feeling kind of down in the dumps, overwhelmed with our four walls and constant company. It’s not that I’d just turn my kids loose outdoors and not watch them; it’s that we need more space for our voices, our personalities. We need to stretch and run and spend that energy. It’s been a hard winter, too, having lost two family members. I need that hopeful feeling that the new growth of Spring brings.

And it’s so close I can almost taste it.

Bud?

Buds. They’re coming. I can almost imagine the blooms that they will soon bring. I can almost imagine our apple tree in full bloom, buds pushing up through the grass. I can almost imagine grass. Snow is melting, here and there, and I can see the dull, dark browns and green from a winter of halted growth. Will it green up soon? Will it soon outnumber the patches, piles and inches of endless white?

I have this lament every year, like last year when I was worried about snow falling on my day lily sprouts. They came up on March 17th. That’s only thirteen days from now. Surely that means that hope is just around the corner, just waiting to be discovered. Right? Surely that means that the sun will shine more than just today. That soon the snow will melt. That maybe, just maybe, Spring really is coming this year, not leaving us in this frozen tundra of gloom and doom forever. Right?

Bud

This has been one of the worst winters I can remember; not just snow wise but emotionally as well. Maybe not the worst but it ranks up there quite high. I’m ready to feel new again myself. To shed my winter coat and stand with my face to the sun and let the bright rays of hope remind me of who I am and what it is that I am doing here.

I’m ready. Is Spring?

_
[For more hopeful photos, visit today's You Capture Challenge at I Should Be Folding Laundry.]

You Capture: Work

 Photography  6 Responses »
Feb 112010
 

We’re talking about work this week for the You Capture challenge. I used to have an office. Then we had another baby, fondly known as LittleBrother, and I now split the office with the boy’s playroom. But, really, that doesn’t work well for me or BigBrother who has taken over the family desktop. So, I do most of my work in this little corner of the living room.

Couch Corner

In that photo you can see two laptops, two cell phones, my card reader, my favorite pen, a cup of coffee and the corner of the couch that I do most of my leaning on. It is here that I write, edit, e-mail, network, procrastinate, tweet, play Bejeweled Blitz, press refresh and generally take on the world of a freelance writer and editor. I have started doing some work at the dining room table again but I prefer the couch. (Speaking of, we’re in the market for a new couch and a new recliner. Anyone know of any good deals?)

What you don’t see in the first picture is the mess that my living room becomes while I do my morning work. Here’s a small glimpse.

Kids? I Got 'Em

I would have shown you my entire living room at that point yesterday but it was trashed. The Duplo blocks were out. More puzzles were at my feet as LittleBrother is deep in a puzzle phase. All of our cars were strewn across the floor. The Veggie Tales castle was turned over as was the fire department. And two new sleeping bags were thrown into the mix as well. The truth is that I spend my mornings doing work and building puzzles or coloring or racing or having my toes run over all at the same time. I’m working but I’m also playing with and/or parenting my boys. I had this idea, prior to doing it, that working from home was easy and somewhat glamorous. It is neither. Rewarding? Sure. Comfortable? Totally. But it’s nothing that I had imagined.

Anyway, thanks to all of this…

SNOMG!

…I haven’t been working outside the home very much. I was called off on Saturday and almost didn’t work yesterday. I did manage to get out and photograph a game. As I was editing some photos, I took a picture of me, hard at work, which, minus the couch, doesn’t really look much different than what I’m doing at home, now does it?

Newspaper

Things you don’t see me working on this week in this post include: seven loads of laundry, baking three dozen cookies, trying new recipes, Swiffering our new floor and generally helping run the household. (That said, my loving husband did all of the shoveling this week.)

What I hope you see in some of these jokes is that I love the work I do, both at home and away. I am a lucky woman in that regard. I hope that continues. If you want to see some other work photos, visit this week’s You Capture challenge over at I Should Be Folding Laundry. Next week’s challenge is kisses. Sounds fun to me!

Now back to work. Really! I’m at This Woman’s Work’s house talking about our book. WOO!

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