linking up with texture tuesday.
to be honest, black and white photography has never been one of my favorites. but i am learning to appreciate it for it’s simple beauty.
i’m over at focusing on life today, sharings some of my thoughts about black and white photography. would love to have you come visit me over there.
love, kelly
many years ago, when i was a teenager, my dad had a motorcycle. as i recall, it was a honda ‘goldwing.’ he and my mom had a lot of fun on that motorcycle. our neighbors down at then end of our gravel road had a motorcycle too, and often times they and my parents would take their bikes into town for ice cream or sometimes head out for sunday rides. i specifically remember one saturday afternoon getting a phone call from my mom telling me that they had driven over to noel, missouri and, on a whim, they decided they were going to spend the night. and they told me that i was in charge and to watch my little brother.
at the time, i thought they were acting highly irresponsible (spoken with all the judgmental attitude that i could muster at nineteen). but as i sit here typing this i am smiling to myself thinking how much fun that must have been for them.
anyway, every once in a while, my dad would take me for a ride on his motorcycle. and i remember one time in particular when the whole family had gone camping for the weekend…and i got to ride the whole way home behind daddy on the motorcyle. we were heading east on i-244 and were exiting onto the onramp to go north on highway 169. well it’s a long, wide curving onramp, and as we started into the curve, i’ll never forget daddy looking back at me and saying, ‘don’t fight it sis…just lean into the curve with me.’
i feel like i should add here that my dad is a retired truck driver with an impeccable driving record. he had a reputation for being able to back trailers into tight spaces that no other driver would even attempt. he has all kinds of specialized hazardous waste certifications and whatnot. and if you needed something hauled somewhere fast and done right, my dad was your guy.
i would also like to add here that family vacations were a nightmare. it was all about ‘making good time’ and every bathroom stop was shaving precious minutes off his previous record time getting to grandma and grandpa’s.
oh and also, daddy has driven more miles backwards than i have forewards. which i am reminded of every time my dad gets into the car with me driving.
anyway, i know i have totally got off the subject, but my whole point in telling you all this is so that you might understand that my my dad is an incredibly safe and experienced driver. and anytime i went anywhere that he was driving, there was nothing but complete faith in him. until that day on the motorcycle.
honestly, that whole idea just made no sense to me…it’s just so counter-intuitive. i’m sure that it has something to do with aerodynamics and center of gravity and all that nonsense. but the deal is on a motorcycle you are totally exposed to the elements and if you crash there is nothing between you and the road. so why on earth would you lean in closer to something that had the potential to skin the hide off of your leg?
but on that day i really had no choice but to trust my dad, so i just held on tight with my arms around my dad’s middle. then i closed my eyes and leaning against my dad…leaned in to the curve. and miraculously, we wound up safely on the highway that would take us the rest of the way home.
it was exhilarating.
i will tell you that all the years later, i still remember that day like it was yesterday and that lesson has stayed with me. truth be told, this was the thing that finally helped me get through the big curve ball of my life – my empty nest. because only when i finally stopped fighting it and leaned into it a little. that’s when i got past it. that’s HOW i got past it.
you know, when i think about, i guess there is always the danger of leaning in too far…of completely losing balance and control. that’s when having an experienced and trustworthy driver is key. someone you can lean on to help navigate the curves.
which is exactly what my dad is to me.
and today i would just like the celebrate my dad. thank him for being steadfast and for his quiet confidence on the road of life. but mostly for letting me lean on him.
happy father’s day daddy. i love you.
hello friends. happy friday! how are you? raise your hand if you are as happy as i am that it is friday!
well so i was going to try to write a blog post about my week and try to weave it into some kind of halfway cohesive and/or humorous story. but the problem is that i am really tired from having to get up to run at the ungodly hour of 5:30 a.m. when the temperature outside is slightly cooler than the surface of the sun. it’s taken a toll. about the most cohesive thing i’ve managed to pull off this week was finding a pair of earrings to match my necklace yesterday. which the fact that i could even be bothered to wear a necklace at all is a major achievement in my book.
anyway, so instead of trying to do the impossible, i thought i might share some of the highlights from this week with in list form if that’s ok.
{{{bad segue alert}}}
1) so speaking of highlights. my girl got her hair done.
she did that ombre look that is so popular right now (which as my husband can now tell you is not in any way, shape, or form related to the word hombre.) anyway, it was a pretty big deal for her since she had never colored her hair before. and i was glad to see that she went to a professional. i speak from personal experience here…let’s just say back in the day i may have gone overboard a time or five with the extra-strength ‘sun-in’ and/or at-home ‘frost & tip’ kits.
2) you might recall that a while back my girl and i were on a quest to find the ever-elusive double caramel magnum ice cream bars. for the longest time it appeared that the wal-mart neighborhood market nearby was hoarding them. well so on monday Kelsey and i made a target run. and our target isn’t a super target, but they’ve recently done a huge renovation to include a bigger food section. it’s no reasor’s or petty’s that’s for sure. but let’s say, for instance, that i need a cute navy blouse, garnier bb crème, paper towels, AND a bag of individually frozen chicken breasts, i can now do all of that at target instead of making an extra stop at the grocery store.
it’s the little things friends.
oh and also…individually frozen chicken breasts are the devil.
anyway, so Kelsey and i are perusing the food aisles at our revamped, sorta-super target and we are next to the freezer section and guess what they have…caramel magnums, yes. but wait!! MINI CARAMEL MAGNUMS!!! i’m sorry for yelling, but do you know what this means??? i no longer have to cut my caramel magnums in half and then worry all night about the caramel leaking out of the sides and making a mess in the freezer so i better go ahead and eat the whole thing.
thank you for not judging me.
and so now i bet you’re waiting for me to tell you about how wonderful these little mini’s are. well i didn’t get them. what?? i know…but see the problem is that i had to make a stop at the post office and omg, the utica square post office is a total time-suck. and if my minis melted while i was waiting behind the guy with the 47 packages to ship and his tracking numbers and signatures and omg isn’t there somewhere else you can take this stuff? well, that would have been bad.
and please don’t ask me why i didn’t just gone home first before the post office because i just now thought of that and now i feel like an idiot. and besides…errand running for me is a carefully orchestrated exercise in time-management whereby you go to the furthest place first and then make your way back home with as little backtracking as possible.
hello my name is kelly and i am an overthinker.
3) i am still obsessed with my daylilies.
4) monday evening, after my beloved got home from his run, he came inside all sweaty and out of breath and said, ‘you need to get your camera.’ at which i couldn’t decide if i was scared or intrigued. because sometimes tripp will say that and it’s something gross or something only a dude would like. but as it turned out it was a bunny!
so stinking cute.
he didn’t appear to be too scared of humans and he let me get pretty close and snap about 147 pictures.
yeah I know…that’s a lot of pictures of one bunny, but living in the city we don’t get a lot of critters.
well that is unless you count the rat that i saw swimming in the pool last week.
{{{shudder}}}
i was out back and i heard a ‘kerplunk’ in the water. i turned to see daisy standing on step and i walked over to see what she was looking at. and omg it was a rat! not a mouse! a rat! swimming with it’s little nose out of the water!! and yes, i screamed like a girl. daisy was standing there in the water just ready to pounce. riley was casing the perimeter of the pool which was the most activity i had seen out of him in a week. so i go around to the back and get the pool net and decide i’m going to try to catch the rat…(don’t ask me what i was going to do if i caught it because I had no idea)…which i did. but no sooner had i lifted the net out of the water when he climbed his way out of the net. at which i screamed again.
it was at this point that i promptly went in the house to call my beloved. but all i got was his voicemail. shit! so i cursed (some more) and screamed into the phone begging him to come home early. then i went back outside just in time to see daisy DIVE into the water and catch the rat in her mouth. omg for the love. and then she starts thrashing the rat side to side all while trying to tread water. but then i guess daisy couldn’t keep her head above water what with all the thrashing so she was forced to let it go. so she swam back to the steps. and once she stopped snorting and sneezing girlfriend was pissed! the rat was still in the pool, but i guess daisy put the hurt on it enough so that it couldn’t fight the current and it wound up in the skimmer basket. gross. which is where it was when tripp got home. after that i went back inside and made myself a cocktail. and all really know about the situation from that point on is that the big grill tongs and burger flipper were involved.
5) we are currently in the market for new big grill tongs and a burger flipper. #prayforme
6) I am currently reading the book the weird sisters. i really like it…although all the references to shakespeare are making me wish i had paid closer attention in miss arnold’s honors english class.
7) say what you want about BravoTV…but for all the shallow, self-adsorbed, vapid, petty ridiculousness that is the real housewives, watching chris and jacqueline’s autistic son finally be say ‘i love you mommy’ was one of the most redeeming moments of all time for that series.
8) on my run this morning i spied a this cool trumpet vine.
and well…i guess that’s about it. now you are up-to-date on all the excitement around here. which of course i am using that term loosely. anyway,it’s friday and i’m really happy about it. so if you’ll excuse me i’m going to sign off and enjoy it.
happy friday friends. xoxoxo
so i wanted to show you the latest addition to my garden.
she just bloomed for the first time yesterday and i was so excited that i, of course, had to take her picture.
isn’t she so pretty?
i bought this beautiful daylily, hemerocallis ‘earlybird cardinal’, a few weeks ago. i had stopped by ted & debbie’s to get my caladium bulbs for the front yard. and while i was there, i did a quick walk through their perennial section looking for something to fill a bare spot in one of my flowerbeds in the back. that particular spot gets a little bit of sun early in the day and dappled sun the rest of the time so i thought a daylily would be a good choice.
i had actually bought this pretty girl for her beautiful plum/magenta color but when i got up close yesterday i couldn’t help but notice the way her petals curl backwards. isn’t that so neat?
sigh…i just love daylilies.
when i brought her home to plant i really had to work on getting her out of her pot. apparently she had been in the nursery for quite a while, because there were lots of little roots growing out of the drainage holes in the bottom of her little four inch plastic pot. so the first thing i had to do was snip all those little roots off. and then when i was finally able to pry the plastic pot away from her, i found a tangled mess of roots inside. 
she was totally root bound.
it was a good thing that she had all those good, strong roots. but the problem with being root bound, is that if i had just planted her in the ground like that, her roots would have just kept growing in that same tangled, circuitous path. around and around. and because of that, she’d never really grow into her full potential.
as a seasoned gardener, i know that being root bound is a problem that is fairly easily solved. so the first thing i did was push into her tightly wound root ball with my shovel just to loosen things up a bit. then it was just a matter of pulling apart the roots a little to free her from the confines of that too-small pot.
next, i carefully placed her into the hole i had dug. i took a few minutes to make sure the roots were spread out and then i filled the hole (which was about twice the size of the root ball) back with good, fertile soil. once that was done, i sprinkled a little fertilizer around the base of the plant. and then as a final step, i watered her deeply.
and now here she is. settled into her new spot. growing and blooming. such a joy to see that. experience that.
i can tell you from personal experience friends that being root bound is not a condition that applies only to daylilies…it even applies to not-so-empty-nesting mommas.
as i was planting my new daylily, i was thinking about those months leading up to and right after Kelsey went away to college. all the ways i was root bound. outgrowing my too-small pot.
but in the loving hands of God, my Master Gardener, all of that changed. he removed all those extra attachments that i had made so that he could get access to my tightly tangled roots. and then with a firm, but gentle hand, He opened my heart…He loosened those places where i had bound myself so tightly to fit inside the too-small pot that i had created for myself. He untangled the mess…the beliefs i had about who i was and what i could do. and then He created a place for me and planted me in a bigger pot with plenty of room to grow. and then as a final step, to help me in my new, bigger space…he poured out His grace over me. So much grace….His root drenching, thirst quenching, soul filling grace.
today as i watched my new daylilies sway in the breeze, i though i might celebrate God’s grace. maybe even bask in it for a moment. 
and possibly remind you that if you feel the work of the Master Gardener in your life, don’t be afraid. i know that it can sometimes be painful, but trust Him. let him tend to you. and heal you. let him pour out his Grace on you. because you are His delight and His joy. and He can’t wait to see you bloom.
love, kelly
linking up with texture tuesday.
this past weekend we enjoyed the most beautiful weather. warm and sunny…slight breeze. before oppressive heat of summer kicks in for good and we are forced into our summer hibernation, i am savoring every delicious moment outside that i can.
peace, friends.
Here's where you can find me on the web!
