Sunday In My City: Quaint Little House

Next to my grandsons preschool is this quaint little house. The red door with the picket fence around the flower beds was so appealing I couldn't resist taking a few shots.

My adventure is just beginning and soon I will be sharing more photos Norfolk and the surrounding Hampton Roads region of Virginia.  Have a great week, and remember to visit some of the other bloggers at Unknown Mami's Sunday in my City linky.

New Meanings for a New Generation

As the years pass words and phrases tend to take on different meanings. For instance when I was little I was given the nick name Skeeter. The full nick name was Neeter Skeeter, a purely nonsense phrase that my cousin made up as a rhyme. I was Neeter Skeeter and my brother was Eddie Seghetti (as in spaghetti). At the time it was perfectly innocent, it just happened to rhyme. Well last year I discovered that the new generation has given the word Skeet a new meaning, and trust me it is not one I particularly wish to be called. Go Here to see the meanings and how they have changed over the last 80 years.

I'm sure my own generation changed the slang meanings to many words or phrases. One phrase that comes to mind is little devil. I can remember when my kids were little calling them little devils and older relatives being rather shocked, so to that older generation it must have had a much wickeder connotation than what I meant. More recently I heard my kids calling their kids demon spawn and at first I was as shocked as my mother must have been when I called my kids little devils. But considering my grand children are the children of my little devils I guess demon spawn is an appropriate phrase for this new generation of mischievous children. With that in mind my daughters and I got together and came up with a line of Demon Spawn Gear. 

As much as I would like to believe my grandchildren are angles, I am not blind. Well at least not yet anyway. Honestly how could they be when I often say my horn holds up my halo, and they are after all my offspring. So I will accept this new odd phrase as it is meant to be a way of saying I know my child isn't perfect. Is there a phrase or word that has taken on a new meaning that caught you slightly off balance?

First Father Daughter Dance

There are so many special days in the life of a child. Some of them come and go without us adults thinking to much of them. Of course we take note of the biggies and capture them with photographs but what about the littler ones?

Friday was just such a day for my granddaughter Sissy. At her school they were having their annual Father Daughter Dance, and this year her daddy was home to attend. Last year he was deployed at the time of the dance. Her mom and dad let her pick out what she would wear and what he would wear.
As they were walking out the door I asked "What about pictures?" and sure enough they hadn't thought to take a picture, so grabbing my camera I snapped this photo.

As I turned around to head back in the house I saw Bubba. He was all sorts of upset that he wasn't going with Daddy and Sissy. Only the promise of him having a special DATE with daddy the next day calmed him down. What often is little to us are major events to little ones.

Rainy Days and Sundays . . .

As the song goes, rainy days and Sundays always get me down. Generally that statement is not true for me, but it was this time. Typically although the rain can put a damper on things, I usually find the sound of rain soothing. That is as long as it doesn't last more than a day.  This time however, I had plans for the day that did NOT include rain. Like the kitty above I felt a longing to explore outside the windows. But not having the protective gear for my camera, I had to take my photos under the protection of the house. 

 Fortunately my daughters back porch is covered and I was able to capture some shots that I like very much.

Photographing rain drops can be a lot of fun. They make everything look so fresh. I posted a couple more of my shots from Sunday's rain shower on my Macro Monday Post.

Do you shoot in inclement weather? If so do you have rain gear for your camera?

Sunday In My City: Norfolk, VA

 Come with me on a trip towards down town.

 After living in the Midwest for so many years the roads here seem so busy. 

Bubba decided he needed to 'Picture' things as well and used his DS to capture a few photos. Along the way we saw some very pretty sights.

 Another strange part of living in Norfolk, VA are the tunnels that go under the water to allow the big ships to reach the docks.

And of course there were a number of ships undergoing repairs.

Unfortunately we were pressed for time so I didn't get to take many shots of actual down town. I hope that I will get a chance to do so soon, as there were many fascinating buildings.

Mother's Day Greetings

We mother's tend to be partial to photographs of our precious children and grand children. That is not to say that I don't enjoy gifts that include shiny bobbles, although I truly treasure the photos and photo gifts I receive.

As a grand mother and a photographic design artist some of my favorite designs are those that preserve a child's special moments, such as this one. So as you can imagine this is a very exciting time of year for me.




I would like to share that joy with you by sharing this digital greeting created using one of our newest designs.

This Mother's Day we at Artistix Network have made available some of our memory photo designs in our Cafepress site. These designs can now be personalized by the customer in a matter of minutes.  We were hoping that these could be made available for posters and larger prints. Unfortunately personalizable designs are limited in size on the site, but they are available on smaller products such as mousepads and coffee cups. We do still offer these select designs on larger high quality photographic prints through our website.

I realize it is a bit early but I would like to wish all a very happy Mother's Day. May your days be filled with love and laughter.

Inspirational Quote: Albert Einstein

This latest inspirational photo design is also available in print. 

Facebook Covers

We have converted a few of our inspirational and fun image designs to work as Facebook Cover photos. We also plan to add more as time allows. We are making these available free on our Facebook fan page.
Here are a few of our complementary cover designs:

Bob Marley inspirational quote Facebook Cover photo

Live Love Laugh Facebook Cover

Patriotic US Soldier Facebook Cover

For more check out our Complementary Facebook Cover Album on Facebook.

You can also contact us for pricing on custom Facebook covers.

 

Sunday Submissions

There are a number of Sunday meme's that I really enjoy. So I have decided to place Sunday In My City on this blog and Scavenger Hunt Sunday and Your Sunday Best on my other blog.

So here are my submissions for Sunday In My City.

My City is now Norfolk, Virginia where I live with my oldest daughter and her family. This weekend we had a BBQ with some of Val and Paul's friends. It was a beautiful day and a lot of fun just relaxing and visiting.

Finding places to store our belongings in my daughter and son-in-law three bedroom town house has been a bit of a challenge. Fortunately their home is good sized and has a small family room/office where I have set up my desk. In the corner behind my desk I decided to store some of my equipment and supplies. If you look you can see a few boxes that are behind my desk.

Today while I was trying to decide what to post about for Say Hi Sunday and Sunday In My City, I heard a faint mewing noise. After looking all around for my daughters cat I discovered him stuck behind my desk. Sorry about the quality of these next few shots, it was very dark under the desk and of course the cat didn't want to hold still.

After I moved the purple case that was on top of the boxes the cat used the open space to jump onto the back of my desk.

He then pushed his way out from behind my computer. I hope he learns quickly and doesn't try to go back there again.

Wishing all a relaxing Sunday and a great week ahead!

Be sure to stop by and visit Unknown Mami at:

The Hunt

Deciding to start my adventures close to my new home I set out on foot with my two grandchildren, Sissy and Bubba.

Sissy

I told them we were going on a hunt and showed them the list of photography prompts. The photographer spirit came out in Sissy and she got all excited to find the prompts.

Bubba

Little Bubba was every bit as excited, however to him we were setting off on a hunt for a playground.

The backyards of the houses are separated by a wide grass area with walking paths. Along the paths we came across a number of interesting sights.

Although it had nothing to do with my list of prompts this hanging decoration caught my eye. Within the next few days I will be sharing more shots of this cool looking decoration.

Following the path around to the front we came across this porch. I can imagine sitting here on a quiet afternoon.

The kids really liked these colorful flower buckets. I do think it adds a quaint touch to the porch.

But we also came across a few very odd sights, like this bench up in a tree. One has to wonder if it was put their in an attempt at making a tree house.

During our hunt we came across three playgrounds similar to this one. The other two were a bit smaller but still very nice.

Of course we couldn't resist playing a bit each time we found a playground.

The kids had a race. Bubba won a few times.

Sissy insists that she won this time because her feet left the slide first. After looking at the photo I told her that it wasn't really a fair win because if you look you can see that Bubba's body is actually in front of Sissy's. Her long legs give her an advantage.

One of the most interesting things we came across on our hunt was this tree with flowers growing right out of the bark. Click here to see more of these beautiful flowers.
















After a fun time on our hunt we headed back to the house. Thanks to Sissy's keen eye and mind I was able to get photos for all of the prompts for this coming Sundays' Scavenger Hunt post. Both kids are looking forward to going on more 'hunts'.

Blank Slate

For days now I have been trying to get myself back into normal routines. I have tried creating composite photographic art, taking photographs, Drawing, painting, writing, blogging and even posting on Facebook. Yet with each attempt it is as if I am staring at a blank slate.

If it were not for the fact that I have been able to continue creating artwork for clients and complete a composite photographic art piece I started just before my husband passed away in February, I would wonder if my creativity didn't die with him. But I know it is just dormant and will eventually rise again. To try and hurry it along I am going to blog, even if these blog posts don't seem to fit my normal theme of things.

I was going to try and participate in last weeks Scavenger Hunt Sunday at Ramblings and Photos but although I had taken a few shots for the hunt my mind kept coming up blank for the final prompt, then I realized I had missed the entry cut off.  So I figured I would post what I did find here as a way to get back to blogging.

New

This is a photo of the front of my new home with my daughter and son-in-law.

Life

 

My Son-in-law is in the Navy so now I will be living the life of a military dependent. 

Fragrant

I love the fragrant aroma of sauteed apples and onions.

Pink

 Luckily the trees out front were full of beautiful pink blossoms.

Obvious

Since I was obviously clueless at finding a shot for this prompt, I will share this obvious composite art piece that I completed this week. Luckily for me it required no new creative thought as I had already chosen the three photographs I wished to combine and decided how I wanted the finished artwork to look back in January, so it was just a matter of putting it all together.