Tag Archives: photography {I’m learning}

being.

The sun shines through the windows and I’m all snuggled down, bottom-deep in my favorite $40 resale store comfy chair. The littles are napping, the air conditioner kicks on, and the day pauses. Steam rises from my vanilla coffee on the table next to me and I take a deep breath.

What do you have to say to me, God?

And I sit. And I wait.

And sometimes, answers come like puzzle pieces, filling in the gaps, making it all make sense.

Other times, there are no answers, no questions to be answered. There is just me be-ing.

It struck me this afternoon that maybe that is the point, after all, isn’t it? To be.

One of my very favorite, close to my heart verses is Acts 17:28.

For in Him, we live and move, and have our being.

If that verse is true, then He is how I’m typing these words. He is how I take the next breath. And the next. And the one after that.

He is the life-sustainer.

If I live and move in Him, if my being is in Him without me doing anything, then He is speaking, whispering, conversing with me all the live-long day.

He speaks through the littles, through the hubby, through creation, through sunshine.

And so it becomes not so much that I have to make it all quiet to hear Him, but that He is in me and unmovable and teh I AM regardless of external noise. Or lack thereof.

He is the unshakable core, the Rock that anchors me down deep into His love-ocean. And if I’m there, I don’t have to go anywhere or do anything to invite Him into what I’m doing.

Oh no. He is so much bigger than that.

I’m already a part of what He is doing, because I live and move in Him. Because He says that I do. That you do. Already.

As Rob Bell says, it all becomes “holy ground” then, doesn’t it? Changing the 8th dirty diaper before lunchtime – holy ground. Putting the 3 year old in time out again – redemptive work. Feeding, folding, sweeping, nursing, answering, loving. If He holds life together and me in it, then we – me joined into the Trinity – do all of these things together, as one.

And He doesn’t want just a little sliver of “quiet time” in the mornings. No, no. He invites us to see Him in all things, as the one holding every detail together. All day, in everything.

Remember that you are being held, every moment of every day.

In Him, you live and move and have your being.

 

a snow day, y’all

Last week, we woke up to this. And let me remind you, we live in the south. We get to see something like this maybe once a year.

Don’t you just love how snow makes everything {including your cheap-o plastic hose hider} look beautiful? ;)

I realize I could have walked to the other side of our gate so the word wouldn’t be backwards, but I didn’t think about that at the time. Hence, we live on a “hcnar”.

As soon as the girls woke up, we headed outside. The picture below is one of my new favorite photos of Little Bit. Complete with a busted lip from tripping and falling on our hardwood floors and backwards boots that she insisted on putting on all by herself. Ooo, I could just squeeze her. Oh wait, I do! ;)

I mean, really. Cactus with snow on it? That gives you an idea of what a treat it was to wake up to a snowy, winter wonderland.

And the chickens. Letting them out of the coop was absolutely hilarious. Hubby opened their door and they all just stood there on the inside, peering out at the white stuff on the ground. Finally, one brave chicken gingerly stepped out and waddled a few steps. When the rest of the chickens saw that he didn’t die or implode or anything, they followed suit. But they just kind of wandered aimlessly around instead of scratching through the snow, into the dirt. It was like they had no idea the dirt was under the inch of snow. *Insert derogatory chicken comment here.*

By noon it was all melted and slushy and incredibly messy but we thoroughly enjoyed it while it lasted. The chickens were just glad to be able to eat again.

a Thanksgiving recap

I’m supposed to be meal planning. But instead I’m blogging. Oops.

I decided in the middle of going through recipes and scheduling stuff in my Google calendars and checking things off my to-do list, I should document our Thanksgiving. Because, let’s face it. With my memory, I won’t remember what happened or what we did by tomorrow afternoon.

We spent part of Thanksgiving in Houston with Hubby’s family and part of it in Hunt with my family. I forgot my camera when we went to Houston {boo}, so we just have phone pics of our time there and I’m feeling a bit too lazy to download pics from my phone. I mean, I just downloaded them from my camera and had to edit and resize them and that was enough to make me annoyed. Without redoing my phone camera photos.

Anyway.

Back to Thanksgiving. The view from my mom and dad’s house is glorious.

They live in Hunt, Texas which is right on the Guadalupe River in the hills. They look across this valley to a thousand-acre ranch on the other side. At the end of their street, you run into the river. Don’t you feel sorry for them? ;)

My sister and her family came down and my grandparents made the drive in, too, from east Texas. My aunt and cousin  were also able to drive in, so it was just a sweet few days of visiting and soaking up some good memories.

My sister has two littles, one is Little Bit’s age and the other is a year. So there were lots of cousin hugs and hilarious toddler conversations with some screaming at each other and stealing toys thrown in for good measure.

That sweet boy slept in those fireman boots while he was at Nonie & Opie’s house. He has the cutest, raspiest little loud voice I’ve ever heard. And chubby little cheeks and bright blue eyes. Why yes, I did steal lots of kisses from him.

My sweet sister also was willing to try taking some family photos for Christmas cards. She is awesome like that. It was completely impromptu, so no matching outfits or fixed hair, but I think I’m going to use them just the same. Real life, people. Real life.

This one wouldn’t stop sticking her tongue out. {See above photo, too}

That Baby Sister is a live wire, I’m telling you.

And I love, love, love that we got a big family picture like this. It was the first time I’d used the timer feature on my camera and I didn’t have a tripod and the lighting was weird, but oh well.

It was a sweet Thanksgiving.

snow {cold rain} in Texas

 

Do you see that???!!! I totally forgot to tell you that it SNOWED in Texas this past Sunday. You know the saying, “when hell freezes over…” – yeah, it was like that. Watch out for pigs flying and cats and dogs raining from the sky.

 

I’m not really sure why all my snow pics are of the floor of the back deck. All I can say is it seemed like a good idea at the time. :) Really, I think I was just trying to capture in photo-form the microscopic snow particles and they seemed to really show up on the back deck. Oh, look, here’s one more.

Note to self: next time it snows, go for some variety in your photography. Despite what the photos say, we enjoyed the scenery as it snowed. Little Bit kept calling it rain. And arguing with me when I told her it was snow. So I compromised with “cold rain”. Stubborn girl, that one.

I {heart} picasa

 
Just discovered how cool picasa is. Playing around (yet again) with my new camera and editing photos from it for the first time.  And then I looked down at my picasa screen and there was a little icon that said “Blog This!”. And so I said, “Okay!” and clicked on it. And that is why there is a random picasa post. :)

Posted by Picasa

I could kiss my camera

Because I love it so much. I may or may not have snuggled with it last night. 


My sweet hubby gave me a Canon Rebel T3 DSLR camera for my birthday. {Insert happy dance}. It is uuhhmazing. Let’s just say I took 224 pictures in a day and a half. 









I have taken pictures of ev-er-y-thing in my house. Like Abby’s discarded clothes wadded up on the toilet seat during bath time. 

Seriously. Have you ever seen such a pretty photo of clothes on a potty?

Never thought I’d be that interested in photography. I think that was when I used to think photography = picture day at school. I’m learning that photography is really creativity, light, texture, balance, and all those spiffy things. 

Brace yourself for a. lot. of photos in future posts. 


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