Still Kicking

I thought that I had better update my blog just to let you know that I'm still alive and kicking. I don't think that I have writers block, I think that I just don't really have that much to say. Maybe it's not a good idea for someone that doesn't say much to have a blog. Oh well. But I do have photos.

This is Brian. We were heading out to run errands. It's funny when I run errands with Brian, we get great service and a lot of smiles from all the young female clerks. I wonder why that would be??

This is my little bug of a great niece Avery with my brother. My brother, his wife, and Avery's mom and dad came to Billy's football game last week. So fun to see them, so nice for Billy to have fans, and fun for us to go out to dinner afterwards. One of the funny things about being a parent...you lose your identity and become known as your child's mom....and that's ok. I'm proud to be Brian and Billy's mom. :-)

We visited the farm and the cabin last weekend. Eric's mom (see what I mean) was having a birthday so we had a little party. It was crazy warm. Here are Murphy and Rusty enjoying the dog days of October. What? Really.

Billy had his last baseball games of the season on Sunday and Brian had his last soccer game. It was baseball at 10:00 am, soccer at noon, and baseball again at 4:00. Another sunny warm day. Perfect if you ask me. Here is #10 hitting the ball on 10-10-10. Too bad I didn't take it during the 10:00 game.

This is Molly. It's hard to get a picture of Molly, she's camera shy. Or always on the move, when she isn't sleeping that is.

The cosmos are still going strong. I love cosmos, they bloom late into the fall. They would be the perfect flower if only they started blooming earlier in the season. I'm enjoying them while I can.

There are still a few petunia's blooming. This one is surrounded by fall leaves. The colors all sort of clash...but I like it.

And last but not least, one of the few Halloween decorations that I put out. It's a horse and a wagon with costumed characters....

....but my favorite part is the horse. Of course. Happy October, until next time.

Soccer is for Squares

Did the title get your attention? I didn't mean that soccer was for square people, I meant that soccer is great for square photos. I'm not sure why, I just looked over these soccer pictures and kept thinking...that one would look better if it were square. So...we have a post with square soccer pictures.
Brian is playing soccer twice a week....once during the weekend and one night a week. With the shorter days, the weeknight games get pretty dark by the time they are finished. They are close by so I usually ride my bike over to watch. When I got there this week he was jogging over to talk with this cute girl....Brian....it's time for soccer not flirting! Sheesh. Just kidding, she is cute though!

A lot of game days Brian isn't really feeling like playing. He'd rather just be at home, not go out again....I think he gets that from me. But once he gets there he gets into the game.

He's gotten better and better...mostly because his confidence about playing has improved too.

He has a couple of good friends on the team. This is Alec, it was nice to hear him hollering encouraging words to Brian. Alec has played a lot, it's a different sort of challenge to play on a team that isn't as good as he's used to...but he's kind and encouraging and having fun too.

The darkness made it challenging to take pictures, but the pink sky was pretty cool. Go Brian!

We've had a couple of weeks of truly gorgeous weather. Sunny, in the 70's, beautiful fall colors. Minnesota is a wonderful place to be right now. It will change....but we enjoy it while we can.

Typical mom, thinks her boys are too good looking for their own good. Nice profile Brian!

Lots of running in soccer, sometimes you just have to catch your breath. I would be laying down on the ground panting if I tried to run that much.

Brian get up! He popped up and went racing down the field.

Brian...don't turn around....there's another cute girl behind you. Girls everywhere, no wonder he's playing so hard. :-)

Zoom...there he goes again. Don't let the lights fool you, they are lighting up a different field on the other side of the parking lot. They're just there to mess up my photos. It's all about me you know.

What?...being selfish is not a penalty! Oh...it was off sides...I guess that is. Being self centered should be too. Actually, I just liked the lighting behind this young lines judge. Gotta admire him calling the shots on these teenagers.

Fresh air, getting out of the house, running, smiling, laughing, playing with friends, hanging with girls, respecting each other....

....nothing square about that....well....except for the photos. Play on.

October Photos So Far

The camera that had a bath in Diet Coke hasn't recovered. Some parts work, but some important parts don't. Like viewing the photos, and the auto focus is messed up, and deleting images from the memory card....oh, and being able to adjust the shutter speed. Other than that, it's just fine. Not. So I've been using our original Digital Rebel. And am relearning where the controls are. Some I'm learning for the first time, because I had kept things on automatic most of the time when I used that camera.

And it's working. Sort of. I can't take too many pictures quickly at games....the camera gets bogged down and can't process things that quickly. I didn't remember that from when I used to use it all the time....but maybe I wasn't trying to do as much.

The colors and clarity are better with the old camera. The Diet Coke camera (Canon Digital Rebel TSi) had problems from early on. The good news was that it forced me to work around the problems and use the manual settings. The bad news was that I ended up with lots of duds before I'd get a good shot.

We bought the Rebel TSi in a big hurry, the day before we were leaving for a family reunion / wedding cruise. We suddenly couldn't load a memory card into our original Rebel. Bent pins? Maybe, but we didn't have time to figure it out. So we bought a new camera with no research. Bad idea. It seemed ok at first, but it was a dud. Apparently at lot of the Rebel TSi's are duds. After about a year we sent it back to Canon, they repaired it, it was better for a while....but it gradually got bad again. Focus was off, colors were off, exposure was off, everything was off.

When we sent it back I was feeling like I'd be lost without a camera....so on a whim I decided to look at our original Rebel again. We had set it aside and had sort of forgotten about it. I tried inserting one of our memory cards...nope...wouldn't sit. For some reason I tried another one and it slid right in. What? The cards were physically the same size, memory wise the one that fit was our smallest card.

Whatever, it worked. I used it until our Rebel TSi came back. A step back in technology...but it worked. When the TSi came back from the manufacturer I set the old camera aside again for well over a year....until the Diet Coke bath.

And now I'm appreciating that older technology again. It's heavier, the photos are smaller, it processes things very slowly....but it works.

I'm older and slower and heavier too...I think we'll get along just fine. And for now....having a camera that works is a wonderful thing.

Baseball, Football, Soccer, Flowers and Diet Coke

How's that for a title? It's that crazy time of year where seasons collide. I could have added softball and volleyball to the title too...but I didn't have pictures and there wouldn't have been room. Today's post is another one of this and that and just my daily photos. And a little story about some Diet Coke near the end.

I never know if I should put the captions above or below the photos. Today they are below. Billy played football in Minneapolis last week. The Mpls. Washburn kids had really bright uniforms....it made my camera a little crazy. Something about orange. Billy's team won. He kicked 2 extra points and missed one....and recovered a fumble. Go Billy!

Petunias in my hanging baskets in the front of the house. I've neglected them this summer...there aren't many left. I've neglected my blog this summer too. Maybe it's the petunias....maybe Pat's Patunia Patch wasn't a good name. Maybe I'm a slouch.

Brian's soccer team was short a few players last week...so Billy filled in. Brian played great, I think he was trying to make a good impression on his brother. Billy played goalie. No one else wanted to. He hasn't played soccer in a lot of years....it was fun to see him playing again....but it was especially fun to see how happy they were to be playing together.

It rained last week, rained and rained and rained. We got somewhere between 3.5" and 5". One farm in southern Minnesota got 13" in 12 hours! Wow. Rain, floods, damaged homes, crops under water, closed roads....rain. The weather has been strange.

Molly is afraid of storms. She didn't like the rain. The rain fit my mood though. My good friend Sarah moved back to Connecticut last week...it was hard to say good-bye.

It's not all bad. There are still a few flowers blooming. This rose waited until now to blossom. It was worth the wait.

Billy had a double header on the other side of the cities...almost half way to the farm. Since it wasn't very far, my mom drove to a nearby shopping center where I picked her up and brought her to the game. She doesn't get to watch Billy play very often, it was a warm sunny day....so it was a real treat to have her there!

Unfortunately, the baseball day wasn't all sunshine and happiness. Remember I mentioned the Diet Coke story? See the photo above? Well, thanks to some Diet Coke, that is probably one of the last pictures I will take with that camera. Sigh. The parking lot was a ways from the field, I had too much to carry so at the last minute I decided to shove some things into a bag....sort of a beach bag. Billy's Power Aide, sunflower seeds, my phone, a jacket, the camera, and a screw top Diet Coke. I walked to the field not realizing that the screw top of the Diet Coke was loose....and that half the bottle had spilled out, onto my camera. Oye. We dried it off as well as we could, I tried it, it sort of worked...but not really. At first it seemed like it might be ok, but the liquid must have seeped in further and now only half of the features are working. When I got it home I put it in a container of rice over night hoping that would help to dry it out further....it's still not right. Ugh, what a sickening feeling. Now what, big bill for repairs if it even can be repaired? Big bill for a new camera? Not my finest moment. In the mean time, I do have my old camera to get me through. The remaining pictures were taken with that.

The inside of the late blooming rose.

A backlit cosmos.

And the sunsetting behind some weeds and a grasshopper. With that I think I'm caught up....not recovered from the week....but at least caught up with my blog! Whew. I think I better go take care of my petunias now. Till next time.

Just some Pictures.

The days of Autumn seem to speed past as fast as the summer days. Maybe it's because we have to do all that we were doing before, but have less daylight to do it in. So today's post is back to just pictures.

I took this one of Brian while he was mowing the lawn. He wasn't thrilled to be mowing...but he did it anyway. Brian is taking a digital photography class, I think I will have him teach me a thing or two. I'm sure glad that I have kids that are smarter than me.


A bee on some cosmos. The bees have been busy, busy, busy this fall.

We had rain and thunder and lightening on Wednesday. Didn't anyone tell the weatherman that it is Autumn and it shouldn't be thundering and stuff? Brian's game got cancelled half way through.

A lot of my flowers are fading and dying....partly because of the season, partly because they've been neglected. See, it's not just my blog that is withering! The verbena look good here and there though. I liked this one in my little wheelbarrow sculpture.

Some more busy bees. Maybe it's the same one that is just super busy. I think I'll call it "Bee on Sage". Or not.

We spent some time on the farm on Saturday....clearing out treasures that had been saved in the barn. Did I say treasures? I think I meant junk. Most of it went in the dumpster....it's junk now. I didn't have a chance to ride, but I did snap a few pictures. This horses name is Breezy, she's a cute little mare. The borders seem to have adjusted to their new home.

And last but not least....a baseball picture. The game before theirs went a little longer than expected, so the boys decided to just chill out and watch for a while. I like the picture, but I especially like seeing the new friendships that are forming between all these boys that didn't know each other a short week ago. There's just something about baseball.

And with that, I better run. There's laundry to do, then a football game to watch! Busy is good.