Making time to take lots of pictures, but no time to write about them

Who needs winter anyway?

Typically, one of my favorite things about living in Kansas is we get to experience 4 completely different seasons. Well ... this year, winter has hardly shown up. We had 2 days of very light snow, that quickly melted. The weather has been uncharacteristically warm, and sunny, and pleasant. By this time of year, I'm normally wearing my pajamas inside out, sleeping with a spoon under my pillow and doing all kind of praying for snow days. Not this year! If our district doesn't use any snow days, the students' last day is May 24th! Can you believe it? That would mean that my summer would actually start before Memorial Day. I don't remember the last time that happened!

Minnie and I've been enjoying many, many trips to the dog park this winter. Today, I rushed home from work so we could get a nice walk in at the park before dark. It was a beautiful day! See for yourself:

65 degrees. At 6:00pm. On February 22nd. I approve.

The sun makes everything look pretty out there.

Can you see the dogs in this one?

She's one happy girl!

A striped sunset through the trees.

I need your help. No more wishing we'd get some snow this winter. Keep crossing your fingers for more days exactly like today!

Did you think I forgot about you?

Clearly, I rarely have/make time for this blog anymore. How in the world did I post something more than just a picture for 365 days in a row my first year here? Some days I can easily post my picture on The View Across Town and other days I'm running around my house with my iPhone taking pictures of things at 11:30pm.

To share a little bit more of what I have been doing ... this post will serve as a way to catch up through photos. Here are some of my 2nd favorites from the first few weeks of 2012 that weren't picked for the other blog. Enjoy!

A visit to Park Place on January 1st for a post-holidays family brunch.

And then a family dinner that night at Molly & Erik's. This little one went around the entire table taking dessert orders (with the short-order cook, Molly, in the kitchen). She did a great job! Her reward was her own bowl of ice cream with a Girl Scout cookie on the side (that she didn't know existed until this night).

The first day back to work was tough, but I did get to go out to lunch with my fabulous teammates! Have you been to Unforked yet? It's awesome!

Playing around with the new iPhone lenses I got for Christmas from Mom. I love this macro shot.

A profile shot of my silly schnoodle.

I love my Instagram app more and more each day. This was a quick shot I took when out walking Minners.

Looking at her Momma!

Staying up too late on a school night. It's always hard to get back in bedtime routine after a break from school.

I like this one because I love to take pictures like this of the sky with beautiful clouds. Here is the same scene ... in a paint by numbers kind of way :)

We FINALLY got a little bit of snow. It didn't last long, not that I'm complaining. It's always very pretty ... but walking a dog in the snow is one of my least favorite parts of winter.

A new "portrait" taken against my favorite piece of art in my condo. Jill says it makes for the perfect photo studio background.

Wearing flip flops. In January. In Kansas. Love it! See? I told you the snow didn't last long.

A perfect day to head to the dog park. We've been close to 10 times this "winter".

Here is a photograph that's very close to the painting 5 pictures up. Such a great day to be outside!

I hope to get back to sharing things on this blog more often. I realize I may have lost many of my regular readers since it's been a while. Keep coming back ... you never know what I'll post next!

Happy Girl

She was probably looking at the tiny squirrel in our neighborhood that keeps climbing just out of her reach on the tree trunks. Now every time we go outside, Minnie sits at the bottom of the trees, looking up like she might be able to catch it. Or play with it. You know how much Minnie likes other animals :)

I was so happy we could get outside for a quick photo shoot today. And quick means less than five minutes in this 100+ degree heat. It's brutal out. Too hot to do much more than lay on the couch inside. We needed to get outside to do something, even if it was quick. I wanted to post this picture of a smiley Minnie because I picked the more serious picture of her for my photo blog today. She definitely shows lots of different emotions ... that's one of my favorite things about her!

Hope you are all staying cool ... people AND animals. Don't leave your pets out in this extreme heat. Just think about how hot you are and then imagine wearing a fur coat every time you went outside. Now I've got to get back to my DVR. The Closer and Rizzoli & Isles are waiting for me.

The evolution of a yawn

Minnie came home tonight after a long stay at Mère & Père's house. They watched her while I finished the last few days of work on my Boards. I'm now DONE (yippee!) and so we both came home tonight and immediately took a nap on the couch. I picked up my camera for the first "real" time in about a week. These were the pictures I took in a row of Miss Minnie yawning and licking her lips. Pretty cute.

P.S. I'm amazed that after typing 70+ pages of information over the last few months, I couldn't come up with anything more to say than that one measly paragraph above :)

My assistant

Poor Minnie. She got ripped off. Her Spring Break with me was hardly a break. I worked on my National Boards the entirety of my Spring Break, except one measly day to clean, run errands and cook. Here she is sleeping in one of the dining room chairs as I worked from the chair next to her the majority of today.

I rarely slept in.

I spent close to 20 hours at one of three Paneras in town working.

I went to another candidate's house two full days to work.

I spent two full days working at my dining room table.

Another two days were spent working at Mom and Dad's dining room table.

I took only one nap, and that was only after waking up early to take Ellen to school.

I did zero shopping. Insert sad face here.

I had time to see a few friends, but not nearly as much time as I would have hoped.

And poor Minnie only got to go on two long walks (and lots of short ones) even though the weather was beautiful most days!

This might go down in history as the worst Spring Break ever. When I have been home, she's followed me around everywhere. Wanting to sit on my lap or sleep next to me wherever I'm working. She knows something is up, and I bet she's anxious for me to go back to my usual, lazy self where I have plenty of time to play and take walks.

The countdown is officially on! I will have everything completed, packed and shipped off before March 31st. I don't have a choice, that's when it is due. The next few days will be stressful, so send some calming & positive thoughts my way. I NEVER imagined this process would be so taxing. I'll be proud of myself when it's finished, but until then I can use all the assistance I can get :)

I'm telling you, you'll be sorry!

Minnie had a very hard time leaving her chew inside tonight when we went out for a walk. She sat here like this for about 5 minutes, waiting for me to put the leash on. I knew it was a bad idea, because the snow we got this week buries her legs and part of her belly. I knew if she dropped this chew, we wouldn't find it again for weeks!

I finally wrestled it out of her mouth, and once we came back in, she was very fast to pick it up again. She didn't even wait for me to dry her off.

I hope to get some of my snow pictures posted here soon. This one couldn't wait :)

Merry Christmas!

Minnie & I are wishing you & yours a very Merry Christmas!

We'll be spending the day with family and friends at Mom and Dad's house. We're thoroughly enjoying winter break and are pleased the 10 inches of snow won't be keeping family from getting together this year like it did last year!

Maybe snow will come, but let's hope it doesn't strap everyone inside ... I've got a fully booked week off from work. I hope Santa brings you everything on your list! :)

Do they make chapstick at Santa's Workshop?

I went over to Molly & Erik's Saturday night so I could get in my Ellen time for the week. Mom & Dad were there to babysit, and I was just there to document Ellen and all of her hilarity!

Ellen's FAVORITE thing to play with is the chapstick from Mom's purse. Seriously. She carried these tubes around for about 45 minutes. I may or may not have found some fun flavors for Ellen's stocking. Gotta love cheap Christmas presents!

For the first time ever, Ellen let me braid her hair. I've been asking to try out my french braiding skills on her for months, but she always pushes me away. This time I tricked her into saying it was how I wear my hair. She'll do just about anything that I do! Check out those natural highlights!

Look closely ... you can see her halo. Errrr ... the pretty artwork Ellen took it upon herself to add to the kitchen walls with a pen!

The cousins having a tea party. Minnie looks less than thrilled. "Sit der, Mimmie!"

Here's Ellen playing with Mère's "yeakum" aka makeup. She's got most of the right letters, just in their own order & pronunciation.

Smiles for Mère!

Minnie DYING for some attention. As the first grandchild (dog) she's had a hard time adjusting to Ellen taking over.

"Mimmie nekkless!"

Mom attempting to stop the tears at bedtime. We were telling Ellen that she was scary in her jammies!

Time to brush teeth. She refused until I pretend brushed my teeth first ;)

Minnie wishing she was allowed upstairs with the girls. Someday, Minnie ... someday!

If this doesn't make you smile ...

... I don't know what will! :)

Spent the evening with Ellen ... and Minnie was MORE than thrilled to spend the night around her. You never know what kind of leftovers you can find on her chin or shirt sleeves :)

I know this picture is blurry, but it's a great representation of what happens when these two "cousins" get together.

"Mimmie! Get down!" *giggle, giggle*

Show me your pearly whites!

Can you tell that my little one looks out of it in this picture? This was taken after we got home from her long day at Dr. Jed's office. It was the day that I finally bit the bullet and scrounged up the money for Minners to get her teeth clean.

Minnie is 4 1/2 and last December, they started sending me home with a quote for a teeth cleaning every time I was at the vet. I'm sure our childhood dogs had their teeth cleaned, but I never remember that. Mom said it was probably good to invest in it so I don't have to have rotten teeth extracted on a 18-pound animal at $25-$125 a tooth!

She spent the entire day there and they called at 12:30 to tell me that she did great, didn't need any teeth pulled and was starting to wake up. I could pick her up at 4:00. I drove over after work and found this TIRED, EXHAUSTED, DROWSY pup! She could hardly stand up in the office and fell against the side of my car when she tried to jump in my lap before I could grab her. She fell asleep on my arm on the way home! :)

This picture looks scary and like she might be mad, but I think she was almost passed out when I took it. I had to show you how clean and WHITE her teeth were! They might even be more white than mine! I can't believe the difference the cleaning made! P.S. Aren't those small teeth funny? I think it's fascinating that they have a "cut out" that the other teeth feet perfectly in when her mouth is closed.

Here she is getting really sleepy. I was told to watch her around stairs and probably just to carry her. It's a good thing she doesn't weigh more than she does because I've got a lot of stairs at my place! She napped on the couch most of the evening and then went up to bed before I did.

Sleeping beauty ... trying to sleep off the anesthesia. :(

At some point in the middle of last night, she jumped up in bed and was still pretty out of it this morning, but not too out of it to eat a breakfast. She hardly had anything to eat yesterday ... which you know was torture for her! When I finally made it home from work tonight, she was at the door waiting for me and was back to her normal, happy, barky, self! Glad to have my baby back!

Too busy to post about the last few weeks, but I can do it quickly with pictures!

I started back to work (unofficially) in my classroom early in August. It takes a lot of time to get things unpacked, uncovered, and organized. I was happy to head back in with my new camera, to share my room with better photographs. Here is my new calendar set ... may not be exciting to most, but I was happy to have something fresh this year (even though it was a hand-me-down)!

Here is my new, FABULOUS, fabric banner that the author of one of my favorite blogs, Whatever, made for me. I found a picture of this banner on one of her blog posts & knew she was the creator. I left a comment & she emailed me later that night! After much encouragement on Megan's end that I could make one myself, I thought it would look better if I could pay her to make one for me. It arrived just in time for school to start! It was the perfect way to tie in my current, bright decorations. The kids really love it, too!

Here is poor Minnie after her day of shots with Dr. Jed. This year wasn't as bad as years past, thanks to antihistamines the day before, during and after her vaccinations. She sure was tired, though :(

The unbelievable sunflowers in Jill's garden! Look at how much taller it is than Mitzi. There were beautiful orangey pink ones, too!

I needed a change & asked for your advice. Molly sent me the link to this idea. I liked it, but had another idea instead.

Jill helped me one night to empty out the jars, clean the jars and then fill the jars with various glass pebbles. I LOVE the way they look now!

I finally got to put my Jayhawk license plate on my new car. I bought it the year that I got my VW Bug, and minutes after I bought it, I realized I didn't have a front plate. Now I can share my KU pride!

Enjoyed my last official day of summer at the pool. This summer, I was fascinated with the clouds and the reflection lines in the pool water. I didn't have my camera with me at the pool very often, but I did make sure to take some final pictures.

As a family, we went out for a "Going Back to School" dinner the night before my meetings started. I picked Los Cabos in Mission Farms because of their giant patio outside and because the weather had finally decided to cooperate a bit. This little one was begging for "moe sasa" (translation: more salsa) during the entire meal. She even liked the spicier ones that I couldn't handle :)

At the end of our meal, we saw three vans that held hot air balloons. We stuck around long enough to watch them inflate & take off. Quite the experience for Ellen!

Great night for picture-taking, too. I was sad I had just removed my new Canon from my purse and had to use my point & shoot for these pictures, but they still turned out.

This year at school, we voted on a Western/Cowboy theme. We've never had an all-school theme before, but it was really fun to see how everyone decorated. I just did a few things here & there, because I really like my regular decorations. Becky, down the hall from me, created this mural out of bulletin board paper & wrapping paper. SO FUN!

The first weekend after school started, some KC friends flew out to Columbus, Ohio to surprise Julie for an early 30th birthday party! We went straight to the party from the airport and she was BEYOND surprised!

The next day, Mike & Julie opened up their house to all the family and friends for a BBQ. My camera was passed around the table for everyone to play. Becca changed some settings for me, and took this great picture. I have a lot to learn!

Here's a picture of all the girls. Exactly a year ago, we were together for our 10 year reunion. Glad we got to celebrate together!

I hope to have more updates this year, but it's going to be a busy one. I'm going to be working towards my National Board Certification, which will mean about 300 hours of work (outside of my job) between now and March when my portfolio is due. If I become a hermit and have a hard time keeping in touch this year, now you'll know why. Writing here and continuing with my 365 photo blog have been easy ways for me to keep in touch with others, even though it's not face-to-face time. Keep checking back from time to time!