Foto Friday Winner

It's time to announce the winner of the Foto Friday FAVORITES contest. Each participating photo got an entry into the contest and the winner was chosen randomly so it would be fair. I was GOING to have a surprise second winner (so I could pick my own favorite of all the entries) but the winning photo WAS my favorite! SO-there ya go. The winner was SUPPOSED to win. ;-)

Wanna know who it is?!?

It is...............

this photo....

By Jennifer @ All Things Under the Sun

Congratulations Jennifer! Email me at

sgrbear724@yahoo.com

to claim your prize!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After 37 different challenges, I thought a few honorable mentions seemed fitting and so here goes:

Jemit definitely deserves the award for the most funny contributions. What a great sense of humor she has and shared with everyone through her photos! Some were so funny I nearly peed my pants. (no, not kidding)

Terri deserves the award for most faithful submissions~I always knew I could count on her to participate!

Bonnie deserves the award for most encouraging person~I always appreciated her commenting on everyone's work (as I am sure you all did too!)

Elizabeth deserves the most devoted award- she has a houseful of people and creatures, does daycare and throughout the challenges packed up a house, moved, and unpacked a house. I know because she is my sister. Thanks for participating so often, Elizabeth, even with such a FULL plate!

Marine Corps Nomads deserves the most exotic places award. She had to do silly challenges like "spring" and snow in the DESERT and it still she participated. Not to mention-I got a good look at the Grand Canyon. Gotta love her for that!

Tracy deserves the award for most mouth-watering photos-holy smokes can that girl cook! (And photograph the food, to boot!)

Amy's contributions consistently blew me out of the water. Amy could easily hold the award for blog I was most excited to check come Friday.

Victoria certainly wins the prize for best attitude as she started the very week I decided to end it (Still feel bad about that!) and miraculously isn't holding it against me. (Thanks Victoria)

I know I missed quite a few of you but I ran out of award ideas! :-) The truth is-all your blogs held gems at different times throughout the challenges and for different reasons. I loved visiting them all and getting to "know" you all through the glimpses you allowed me into your lives.

Thanks to all who participated in all the Foto Fridays. You all made Fridays so much fun and I enjoyed my Friday wanderings so much!

Improbable Beauty

Smooch hiccups, over and over again, and stretches womb with toes as I sit, legs curled over ugly but comfy armchair, reading of Benjamin West and hairless cats to fingers that color and build fences at my feet and a husband takings glimpses of Seasons Past.

This chair, with her rustic country stripes accommodated legs thrown over the side while Baby Boo squirmed and wiggled seven years ago. I nursed Boo turned Rynnie Roo, fresh and new Mama, in wee hours of the morning and the chair sat in the teeny tiny house by the window of the teeny tiny living room and the moon whispered to me and the cows bawled.

It rocked as woman on husbands' lap, cried on shoulder when he lost his job. It helped desperate, scared man to console frightened new Mama when no words could reassure. We moved jobs and houses and we took the chair with us, Matt cursing its' huge bulk and I resolutely standing by it, we WILL be taking this ugly, wonderful chair. It rocked a womb baby Peanut turned Panda, in a new home-in a musty basement because it wouldn't fit anywhere else-but it lured me down there and there I would rock baby turned boy. It followed us again, to another home and forgave us for all its bumps and bruises along the way.

Baby Bunkin finally came, and not so fresh and new Mama had to compete with little arms and legs that would bound to it, sprawl out on it and rock it too hard. Still, it rocked...this time next to a warm vent that rises heat from the basement woodstove. Feet plant firmly on the floor because wood floor is warmed by woodstove down below. The seat cushion got a friendly smile, in the center, from where I sat sideways and it isn't quite as comfortable to sit "the right way" anymore. So, when floor is cold with summer, I throw my legs over the side as I have always done.

Mama, thrice, the chair is well worn by now. The arm has a slit where big girl and boy bums have listened to stories, leaving room for nursing babe turned squirming toddler. The chair fills up as children gather on my lap and on each arm and I think of Smoochs' hiccups and I think how this will be the only time a Mama and four children can squish into a chair, when fourth is but a belly baby. And only then, when Mama is squished to near oblivion by melting children.

I think of all the days I would look at plaid chair and dream about magazine living rooms and coordinated furniture. White. With some blue the color of robins eggs and always a fresh vase of pale pink peonies on the coffee table.

But Mamas who live among babies and dirty barefeet that trudge carrying eggs and calf grain don't buy white couches. Mamas who stay home while Papa works hard to make ends meet don't buy furniture from furniture stores at all, at least not this one....they pick things up off the side of the road or pluck them from yard sales and find beauty in the ugly. Find thanksgiving in the ordinary. Find comfort in the "being there".

I realize, this ugly plaid chair that matches nothing and sports smiles and slits in awkward places has turned beautiful to me. It occurs to me that the beauty of the thing lies not in its appearance, but its comfortable devotion and faithful BEING there.

My children think I am a beauty. They say it often. I look in the car mirror to finish my eyeliner before church and see a girl staring back at me, admiring. A little boy says I am pwetty and tells of his future blonde- haired wife.

Could the beauty of this ordinary, worn Mama of four be the same as the chair? Could my beauty lie in the comfort of presence? Of dependable shoulders to cry on and a voice that can be heard throughout the day? Is "quality time" enough for children or is the beauty in the quantity of time?

My chair rocks, faithfully, as it has since we moved it from bachelor "trailer-mansion" to newly married "little house" and it has been there as girl turns woman turns wife turns mother and still it rocks. And I find its beauty.

Will my children find mine?

Will my husband look at his gray-haired woman with saggy skin, wrinkles and fragile bones and find beauty in me as he remembers my constant faithfulness, devotion? Will I grace his memories with presence? Can I be beautiful even if the only magazine covers in my life are those on the bathroom floor, sandwiched between toilet paper and sink?

My life is more beautiful because of that ugly ripped, plaid chair. I hope that this tarnished woman can make the lives of these wonders of mine a bit more beautiful by the end.

Here I sit. Faithfully rocking.

I want so badly to be beautiful.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Finding bits of beautiful in my life, extraordinary bits of ordinary. Continuing my gratitude list......

• a chair, who has rocked me with my babies, all of them
• a home full of castoffs, humble beauty
• mud reflections

• scarred head of husband-all constant reminders of the beauty of his life.
  
• feeling rough, thick fingers gently stroke
  
• the only two rings I have, treasures
• a weekend of safe travels
  
• a reunion of friends
• admiring gardens of all sorts
• a farmer boy, who would rather help with chores than play with toys
  
• dozens of children, all keeping one another occupied.
• seeing a sweetling in person, wearing the dress *I* made for her.

• snitching fresh pineapple
• rain that pours only AFTER strawberry picking
• stone houses at dusk

• young women who are more wise than most grown women~I see in them, hope for the future. Here is one. Here is one. And one was celebrated this weekend past weekend.
  
• handpicked rubies
  

• the smell of honey in the air
• muffins baking
  
• the start of a new family read-aloud. Charlotte's Web, handpicked by Panda
  
• matching red bandannas on matching golden locks

Gifts numbered 402 to 422 gratefully realized.

What are YOU thankful for????

Foto Friday: The CONTEST

Today is the day when we all share a 'favorite' (or several) photograph(s) we have taken. Anyone who participates on this particular challenge, the last for a while, will get an entry into THIS contest and the chance to win THIS glass tile pendant, and every photo (up to four) you enter will get you a separate entry. A winner will be selected on Monday.

I wanted to pick a favorite photo that was captured as a direct result of extending myself through these Foto Friday challenges. It was hard to choose (and very fun to look back at them all!), but if I had to choose my FAVORITE of all the challenges, it would be these:



I love the brightness, the fabulous color, and how crisp the confetti and beads are despite them actually blowing out of the kiddos' hands. I likely never would have thought to do a picture like this had I not been challenged to think "outside the box" for the Foto Friday WIND challenge. Thanks for letting me share some of my silly little experiments with you.

Now!!! Let's see some favorites of YOURS~be they from the Foto challenges, this week, or from your archives. Again, each photo entered (up to four) will be a separate entry to the contest. Please link back to my blog within your blog post, so I know you are actually participating in the challenge. (I am a little slow, but hey-aren't these THUMBNAIL linkies cool?!? I'll know for next time...)



For those of you sad about no more challenges, take heart! A site called iHeartFaces.com has weekly challenges that look really fun to participate in. In fact, I would love to participate in them (and might) if ever the stars were to align just so. ;-) If I do, you'll be the first to know...and you can let me know too~if you decide to participate.

Thanks for your understanding about my time commitments and limitations. While I loved doing Foto Friday and am sad to see it go myself, my shoulders already feel a wee bit lighter. ;-)

Bullet Bits

• I started an end-of the year school shelving re-organization project. (LONG overdo.) Organization projects, always make MORE of a mess before a nice and tidy end result. At the same time, I decided I needed to sort through books from the overflowing bookcases in the library and get rid of some. (If children have no SPOTS to put books in the cases, they won't. They will leave them on the floor. Every single day. Every single HOUR of the day. NOT fun.) So I started. THEN I decided maybe if I got some of the "educational" books off the school shelves and onto the bookcases in the library, that would free up some much-needed space for the upcoming school years' supplies. That is about when mass chaos ensued. That is also about the time I lost my steam. So for three days the house has been in an emergency aftershock from Hurricane Bookshelves. I kid not. I stayed up until midnight sorting the schoolroom enough to actually be able to walk on the floor.

• Andrew declared that he is going to marry a girl who has my color hair. (Just when I was thinking of lightening it, too! hehehe) This, a few days after he said...

"Mama. If you didn't gwone up and married Papa, and if you didn't have Qwin and me and Adyay and Smooch fo yo childwen, and if I were gwon up to be a man, den I wud marry you because me dink you are so sweet."

• I am going to be shooting (with a camera, that is) a wedding on July 3rd. Trying not to think about it too much lest I pee my pants.

• NONE of the seeds I planted a few weeks ago came up. No lettuce. No beans, peas, spinach, carrots or cukes. It is beyond depressing to get your big baby belly heaving over soil on all fours-with nothing to show for it. In fact, the 50 tomato plants nearly died. All the flowering plants I had planted in my cutting garden DID die. The peppers were stunted. Talk about discouraging! My guess is that the cow manure was too strong for everything when I first started planting and, if it didn't kill the plants entirely-it maimed them pretty good. Thankfully, the tomatoes are starting bounce back. After all that, I decided I was going to go easy on myself and just plant PLANTS instead of reseeding. It would cost more but I could ensure they were already established and I wouldn't be that much further setback, so I waited a few weeks and tried again. No peas for us this year. Or carrots. :-( The good news is that the cukes, zucchini, yellow squash, acorn squash, pattypan squash, butternut squash, cosmos, zinnias, cantalope, watermelons, broccoli and brussel sprouts that I planted the last two days seem to be doing well and haven't been shocked to death this time around. I did try to plant more spinach, lettuce and beets. I NEED me some beets this summer! I don't like buying plants from greenhouses because of the cost, but I figure, it is still economical to get a plant for $1.49 and get plentiful squash from it all summer than to buy ONE squash at the store for the same price. Mental note: manure needs to cure-for a LONG time. Lesson learned.

• I haven't stepped foot in my craft room in weeks. My sewing machine, after being sent out twice, was returned in a state that could sew as long as you wore hearing protection for take-off. Sending a machine out three times?!?! This is getting beyond ridiculous and is killing any desire I have to stitch a lick. But I have noticed the gorgeous golden sunlight my craft room has been sporting. I think she misses me and is trying to lure me back in.

• I know the perfect Father's Day gift for Matt this year. If I were to tell you, you would laugh. MAYBE roll your eyes. But HE, that crazy, quirky and sometimes insufferable man of mine is going to L.O.V.E it. (And no, Mattie, I am not going to type it here. thankyouverymuch)

• I finished this book recently and was actually sad it was over.

What Our Mother's Didn't Tell Us: Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman
by Danielle Crittenden

I ditto every one of the great reviews on the back cover of this book. It is a MUST read for all women or aspiring women, for the sakes of our children, our husbands and ourselves.

Not an ounce of religion anywhere (so non-religious feminists ought not to discount it), this book is full of the practical, common sense, well-explained ramifications of the feminist movement within the realms of sex, marriage, love, politics, age and careers.

It brought a lot of lightbulb moments and Amen's and got me thinking seriously considering some things I hadn't considered before. I found her current mindset to be lacking a bit of fervor and ought to go even further, so much that I will be expounding on this book in a seperate post, but all in all-I think this book could seriously change the lives of women who have bought the lie.

• Baking an angel food cake is on the agenda for today. And then maybe lemon curd and banana rum custard with the leftover yolks. And some homemade mayonaisse, because Matt has been begging. If I am brave and find myself with enough time, tomorrow I may try to make some lemon-filled donuts after being inspired the other day. Of course, also on the agenda is cleaning the church, getting groceries and getting a Hurricane Bookselves clean-up crew in here. Don't ask what we are having for supper. I haven't one iota.

Multitude Monday

So much to be thankful for, this day and every.

• spring color palettes

• cool showers that wash away grime

• an exhausted wee one who plopped herself on the couch and fell right to sleep while Mama cooked supper. A miracle, for her personality.

• 

• workbooks nearly done

• the season of table flowers, how ever modest they may be
  

• the summer dance of the windows; opening at night, closing in the morning

• grass weavings of a girl

• Smooch kicks and belly morphs while I watch LIFE under a bellybutton

• a girl who, while I was working in the garden, snuck secretly inside and swept three rooms of the house, tidied toys, washed bathroom sinks and emptied garbages, all for a most elaborate, wonderful surprise for her Mama. No strings attached.

• a Papa, who lets helpers surround

• a working tractor again, after a quiet few months
  

• a seatful of intent little ears as Mama and Papa tell a tag-team story that lasts all the way home

• "little fairies", what my children call dandelion seeds

• a straw-topped man

• sun glitter

• tasting lips, not beard

• 
• peppermint Rolaids that taste *almost* like candy
• kicking Mattie's butt at checkers, hehehe
• an earth nursery, full of babies

• wild mint expeditions

• minty fresh smiles, a new kind of toothpaste

• splitting the very first homegrown strawberry four ways
• midnight thunderstorms, and children who have no fear
  
• belly sprouting neglected toes

• that I am here, able to experience these daily bits of grace and beauty.
  

Gifts numbered 377 to 401 thankfully acknowledged.

What are YOU thankful for????

Computer Malfunctions, Foto Friday and Mossballs

I am SO sorry that Friday came and went with no Foto Friday. I tried all day on Friday to get online and my computer would have none of it. Tried on Saturday too, but to no avail. The computer would come on-the internet would be available but nothing would show.

Thank you for those of you who expressed concern. Nothing bad has happened here, except that I am reminded how unreliable technology can be. (I was reminded also how unreliable technology is not all that bad a thing every now and again, if you know what I mean.)

Whatever happened, whatever "issues" my internet was having remedied itself after a few days and so here I am, posting Foto Friday for Monday morning.

***Stay tuned, all you Foto Friday participants, for an important message at the bottom of this post.***

Last week's theme was HAPPY.

One particular photo from the week stuck out for me. This one:


The rest of the photos don't really continue with the HAPPY theme, but they do show "the rest of the story".

What is WAY better than snowball fighting, I find out? MOSS ball fights.


Not only do they not HURT like pelting with ice would, but they are fun to squish while making, they make a huge SPLAT on contact and they STICK, splattering your victim with goo. (Watching the victim try to unsmear sticky moss splatted right in the middle of their back is a riot too.) An all around FEAST of the senses. The bigger and mossier the ball, the better.


Corynn was a champion moss ball thrower and almost always hit Andrew. How could she not be, with such form?


Andrew on the other hand, threw at Corynn but unfortunately, the balls usually managed to head in the opposite direction.


Once, though, at the end of the fight, he finally GOT her...and that is where the Foto Friday HAPPY theme came in. Boy, was he.

Littlest sister was merely content to check the weird stuff out:


Anyone want to participate three days late???

~~~~~~~NOW, for an important note from our sponsors~~~~~~~har, har, har

The summer is kicking my butt, and I haven't even gotten to the BUSY part of it yet. I just don't have time like I used to (in winter) to devote to photo challenges and things. I tried changing Foto Fridays to include archives as a way to extend it, but the fact of the matter is, it is still taking up a huge chunk of time (that I don't have). From the recent wane in participation these last few weeks, I am wondering if you all might be in similar boats. Hopefully, I won't be breaking any hearts when I say that next week will be the last of the Foto Friday challenges. If not forever, at least for a good while.

BUT. The good news! To say thanks to all who participated, and to give one last big HU-RRAH before we close, I propose we have a COMPETITION!!! We will call the theme for next week's Foto Friday FAVORITES.

Post a favorite photo or photos (limit FOUR) of ANY subject or in any genre of photography you have taken, (you may use photos already posted for previous Foto Fridays or new ones) next Friday, and the winner selected will receive one of these:

a glass photo tile pendant, made by me.

The winner will have the option to customize the pendant by emailing me a personal photo of their own OR to chose one from a selection of my own photographs for their necklace. Like these:

Contest closes Friday at midnight. Winner to be announced Monday.

(Not trying for suspense, only going out of town! hehe)

Staring In

There are occasional moments when the dinner preparations can wait, the toilets deal with not being scrubbed, the toys scattered on the floor aren't quite so vexing to a mother and I realize that I have not heard in childtone a story, anecdote, or question for several minutes (!!!) .

When I find the children, lost in their own world-but together, I can only sit on the couch and stare into that world window.

It's a beautiful place.

It's a beautiful life.

Super simple Kidlet BATIK

Grandma brought over a bunch of nice, crisp white pillowcases she had found yardsaling, figuring I could use them for something. I had been thinking about trimming them in ricrac, embroidering them, or making dresses from them but all ideas were eventually outvoted for the good of the childer.

Corynn has been asking for "a project" (and by asking I mean begging) for a while so I sacrificed crisp white for wrinkled COLOR---and got in return two very happy children with their own personalized made-all-by-themselves Batik pillowcases.

It's a very simple art project any age can do (and have fun with). Here's how:

You need:

white fabric (use scraps to sew a pillow or make a banner, cut triangles for a bunting, use a square or rectangle for a wall-hanging or use something premade like a pillowcase or shirt.)

Elmer's School Blue Gel (easily found, but no substitutes!!!-white glue doesn't work):

and Acrylic paints (I watered them down a bit to make a smoother consistency--and to prolong them!)

Acrylic paints will STAIN fabric (which is why we are using them!) so have paint aprons/old t-shirts available for messy painters.



Step 1) Draw a design on your white fabric with glue. This design will resist paint and will stay white for the finished product. Have your child experiment with thin lines and thick lines. The more details the better. For the very young, you can draw a design for them.

Let glue dry overnight. (In our case, we let it dry for about 2 weeks, thanks to a ridiculous amount of rain and busy-ness!)
Step 2) Using watered down acrylic paints, paint your piece, even over the glue design. Encourage your child to paint until there is no more white space showing.


Andrew and Corynn painted happily for over an hour until both of their pieces were done~I was impressed with their "stick-to-it-iveness". Great "keep 'em occupied for a bit" activity, if you ask me!


Let dry completely.
Step 3) In a VERY warm bathtub or sink, soak your fabric until all glue is washed out. I eventually got impatient and used my kitchen brush for those last pesky bits of slimy glue. A few paint flecks will appear in the water (it is from the paint that was over the glue, not the paint on the fabric.)

Once all the glue is washed out, let dry completely. You can use the dryer or line dry (which I did-which is why they are all so wrinkly.)

There you have it. Masterful, permanent creations of their very own!

(PS. I have found that children stick with projects much longer and take their time more when you are right there doing it with them (not helping them with theirs, rather, working next to them on your OWN project. So get your own hands dirty too!


And if you have any babies around~they can paint too! (with water, that is!)