G R O W Y O U R W I N G S

I'm getting some reactions to this shot from last night.  It was hard for me to pick between this shot and the other one I decided to share here.   But based on some comments I've gotten, I'm going to share this one as well.



.

NSLL (see email).

:)

I hope you have a wonderful day!   Full of peace and happiness.   Focus on you today.  You deserve it.

--K

Last weekend Bob, Tim and I went camping at Timothy Lake at the base of Mt Hood.   It was fun!   I took a lot of photos of Tim on the the lake (Tim on Timothy Lake, ha!)  And I set up on the shore just before sunset to capture Mt Hood & the lake during the sunset.   There was another photographer who had the same thought so we were both armed with our tripods and remote shutters and sat there at our respective picnic tables snapping photos as the sun set.  It was very cool watching the changing lake and light as the sun went down.   Dragonflies came out to fest on the flies, as did the fish, who jumped out of the water to catch their dinner.   And later just as the night was fully descending, the bats came out to feast as well.   There were fishermen and boaters out on the water enjoying the view as well.

I had thought to get up before dawn to capture the sunrise.  But even though I woke up in time, I truly did not want to deal with climbing out of my sleeping bag, getting dressed and trying to look somewhat presentable after dealing with what were essentially outhouses with no running water, and then traipsing down to shoreside with my camera gear.   We have another site reserved in mid-September at the same lake.  Tim may take it to use just with his friends.  But if he does not, this site is right on the shoreline, so perhaps I will be able to capture the sunrise then.

Meanwhile I'm happy with these.

I love Mt Hood.   Somehow I feel like it's "my" mountain.  When I was in my early teens I asked my mother, who was an oil painter at the time, to paint me a huge painting of Hood so I could put it on my bedroom wall.   I kept that painting until just a few years ago (although it was in our attic for many years.)   When I was in my late teens my parents and I were driving on I84 towards the east side of Portland,  not far from the entry to the Columbia Gorge.   As we rounded a corner, Hood appeared in the near distance.   My first thought at that moment was that I was going to live out in this area when I was older.   We were passing the Gresham exit just at that moment.   I remembered that and when Bob and I started looking to purchase our first home, we set off to look in Gresham.   Now every time I drive home from work I see Hood.    I love that we live close enough that we can be at timberline in less than an hour.   :)

My father died in a climbing accident on Mt Hood in 1987.  You would think that would sour me on the mountain.  But it didn't.  In a strange way it made the connection even stronger.   

I love this mountain.









( more photos under here…. )

,. .

A photo I took on Friday while driving with my mother around the area where I grew up.   This was on top of Cooper Mountain (which is more a foothill than a mountain), overlooking the town of Beaverton, which is where I spent years 9-18.   I went to grade school not far from here.   This was a newish (hell anything that wasn't there when I was there is newish to me! ha!) nature park at the crest.

These three girls were playing.   But they were doing it so seriously.    They were sitting on this rock just as we pulled into the parking lot and I was getting out of my car.

I tried some of the techniques I learned in the Digital Artistry class I took a couple of weeks ago.  There was so much information in that class and I'm finding it hard to remember a lot.  Good thing I did take *some* notes.

Been VERY busy.   Almost through all the graduation events.   Mom is recovering from her fall.  The family is taking shifts on a 24x7 schedule to stay with her while she is healing.

Emily's college graduation is later today.   Can't believe both our kids have graduated.   *beams*

I have a photography class coming up next Mon-Weds.  Looking forward to it.  It's photoshop-centric.   

Been VERY busy at work.  Keep getting new projects assigned.  While I'm flattered our department head only wants me on some of these big projects, I'm concerned about the volume of work.  

Hopefully after next weekend (not this coming, but the one after), things will move back to normal.

Meanwhile I've been taking loads of photos - but have had no time or energy to do anything with them.   Here is one from some shooting I did up at Crown Point in the Columbia River Gorge on the evening of Emily's college award ceremony - which, btw, she won most outstanding restorative student!    

I've so many great photos from the past 3 weeks, I can't wait to get the time to do something with them.




.Edit: Went and grabbed one from the Crown Point shoot - this one is of Mt Hood. Taken from our car as we were moving. Hence the ghost outlines in the image.




.

Edit:  Okay one more

.

 I never post anymore.  I know, I suck.   

Love the news about an extra SPN episode!  \O/

Also I just got my repaired Canon 40D back!  My Jenny!   So Jenny joins my new 7D camera.  Which today I decided to call Sammy.  :-)

We just got back from a 3 day weekend in Central Oregon.  Took some photos of a beautiful lake we went kayaking on Saturday.  (photos here)

Working hard, but having fun.

Bob's birthday is tomorrow and Tim's 18th is on the 22nd, so busy with those as well.

Is it September yet?   I'm very ready for season 7!

I gifted S1-S3 DVDs to my cousin Christine and hubby David who live in St. Paul.  I visited with them a few weeks ago in St. Paul.  Chris and I hadn't seen each other for about 20 years!  But we hit it off like wildfire.   They expressed an interest in SPN.   We watched the "Fight the Faries" episode together on Friday when it aired on CW.   So I sent them S1-S3!

I do read LJ regularly btw.  I just don't post much anymore.   Been kinda living on FB and now on Google+.  If anyone is on Google+ let me know--I'd love SPN friends on there.

.

My 15 year old son just passed his driver's permit test. 

Watch out!

Grins.

*is proud*

Well that's over.

I actually have a great "I'm grateful for" post floating in my head.  I just can't get it down in words.  I should have paused to write it when it occured to me a couple of days ago.  Oh well.

So today was...interesting.  And good.  But...yeah...interesting.

Still sick.  In fact I woke up feeling worse than I did the past couple of days.  However I think I mostly held to my "not freaking out" mode.  It threatened a couple of times.  But never came full force.  

Of course my voice is almost gone from my cold.

Had some family drama on Hubby's side at dinner.

Everyone said the food was good.  I personally didn't think so (I made it so I can say that!).  But everyone's telling me it's because of my cold.

Actually it was a good day/evening.  Had a good conversation with Em this evening.  We cleaned the kitchen--mostly me because she helped out so much making the food when I started to collapse around 4pm.

Oh, btw... fickleone , I ended up burning sage about an hour after everyone left. 

Boy did it smoke a lot!  (hee!)

ETA:  Oh forgot to mention that my email went away for just over a day--I didn't receive any LJ or other emails yesterday.  Our internet had been drastically slowing down over the past several weeks.  I was putting off calling the cable company because I just didn't feel up to dealing with them.  But finally I had to--and on Thanksgiving morning!  It was frustrating for a bit.  But they finally reset our modem and not only did the email problem go away but our internet sped up again!  So cool.

We all went for a three day trip to Sunriver in central Oregon.  Our family has been going there off and on for 20ish years.  Central Oregon is a beautiful spot for vacationing.  Mountains, rivers, lakes, forests, high desert.  Beautiful weather. 

I like Sunriver for many reasons.  It's a resort community where you can rent out condos or homes for days at a time.  The homes are usually beautiful.  You have access to the resort's pools and the resort offers golfing, canoeing, horseback riding, and miles and miles of bike trails.  In the winter there are shuttle buses up to Mt. Bachelor for skiing.

I like going there because I can just relax while everyone else can do what they want.  There's just something about the area that makes me feel good and relax.

Turns out we didn't do much of anything.  Bob, Tim, Emily, Alex and I mostly just lazed around.  Usually that's my gig.  It drove Bob a little nuts because he prefers activity.  But I went with him up to Lake Hosmer (see photos under the cut) where he took Tim's kayak out for about 1-1/2 hours.  It was beautiful up there.  I found myself thinking we needed to get more kayaks because I wanted to go with him.  As it was I sat at the side of the lake and just enjoyed the view and people watched.   There were a lot of people putting in canoes and kayaks.  It was a very calm and peaceful lake that does not allow motors.

For the rest of the time...we lazed.  And Bob, Tim, and Alex did the xBox Halo 3 thing.  I enjoyed watching them play actually.

Emily and I made actual meals...breakfast, lunch, and dinners.  It was nice to have just together time.

( pictures under the cut... )