Small Town Snapshot Sunday

"Within the South itself, no other form of cultural expression, not even music, is as distinctively characteristic of the region as the spreading of a feast of native food and drink before a gathering of kin and friends." - John Egerton

I found a new blog, On the Front Porch who does a photo every Sunday of a picture of small town {southern} life... and I can't wait to start participating. Here's my first offering:

It's my neighbor's front porch... it's a big, ole wrap around porch with an American flag flying proudly on a daily basis. There's a magnolia blossom in the top left corner and it's so familiar to me. It's a picture that could be one of so many different homes around my town.

Question

To my fellow bloggers who post pictures...

I always choose the large picture option but don't always get the large picture on my blog... How do you control the size of the picture while importing it into blogger? My never fill up my blog space as I've seen others do... Does it have to do with the size of the picture before I import it?

Suggestions? Comments? Or Rules to Blog By?

All are welcome

More Pictures

"The virture of the camera is not the power it has to transform the photographer into an artist, but the impulse it gives him to keep on looking." - Brooks Atkinson

I've been playing around with flickr and editing pictures again. Guilty as charged but it's so much fun to figure out what makes it look better and how to change my camera settings next time to actually capture the image I want versus the one I ended up with. Practice makes perfect.

Here's the champagne picture I already posted:

And here are some flowers from the wedding, I added the vignette effect under the 'create' section and softened the edges of the picture. The flowers were actually this brillant pink and pretty. The strong color worked well in contrast to the natural colors of the setting.

Wouldn't You Know It?

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
- Crowfoot


The best place to see the sunset is off the back loading dock of our new store... the field behind it has been cleared out for the new hospital and our dock provides the perfect view looking west. I've caught it several times and here's one of the best ones. I love it when I walk out at night and this is the view I get before I head home... it makes me smile.

Cousin Barry

"The Family - that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our most inner hearts, ever quite wish to." - Dodie Smith

A couple of weeks ago, we traveled south to Jacksonville Beach, Florida for a clan gathering like no other. My cousin, Barry was getting married and we were all invited.

I took several pictures of the wedding and I was fascinated with the hotel location of the wedding. Fitting to that coast, it was spanish influenced and the wedding was held in the

courtyard overlooking the ocean. Add in a rooftop bar and you had the best of both worlds.

Not the best picture but I'm still learning... and I don't have a nighttime lens... But it kind of adds to the old world feel, right? I know, I know... I'm working on it. How about this one?

And of course, I took pictures of William during the ceremony. He sat still for about 2.5 seconds before he was in the flower bed with the fans... Not bad for 18 months old. He wasn't making any loud noises so we left him alone.

This little girl, on the other hand, was completely enthralled by the whole ceremony. And I'm sure there will be hours upon hours of playing 'wedding' and dressing up as a bride. I'm sure to someone her age, a bride is about as close to a real live princess as you get... and a little less scary than the characters at theme parks.

And then of course, here's the reason I go to weddings at all... Champagne...

Slow

"Progress, of the best kind, is comparatively slow. Great results cannot be achieved at once; and we must be satisfied to advance in life as we walk, step by step. - Samuel Smiles


that's how the house is going. thanks for asking. it's going slow...

And while I'm enjoying the process, progress doesn't seem to be happening. This weekend, I stopped the actual painting and sanding to finish organizing the rooms already painted. Which I think will help me feel more at home.

Here are some more pictures.


That's the blue in my bedroom - Sherwin William's Jetstream (SW6492) - when I first opened the paint can, I got nervous and when I applied it to the walls, I got even more nervous. When my mom came over and swore it wasn't the color we had picked, I got angry. But now that it's up and dry and my furniture is in the room, I LOVE IT. It's just bright enough to be noticeable and calming enough not to be distracting. (It's a good thing too because painting a room over due to poor color choice isn't an option right now).



The white trim is also Sherwin Williams, Classic White, a discontinued color but I had a can from my parent's house so I was able to get a match made. Why they got rid of this perfect white trim color in oil I do not know but I'm making sure I have enough left over to continue to get it matched in the future. It is the trim color I have used throughout the house and I love it. Classic and clean looking. Fresh and Bright.


This is my new favorite toy... a sander! Once I got over my mental hump of "I don't know what the hell I'm doing" and got to work, I've really enjoyed sanding. It's much quicker and more efficient than painting so it satisfies my instant gratification need. I can see progress after a couple of minutes versus hours. And I can't explain how nice that is...





And my house numbers, my Papa (grandfather) attempted to put these up for me this weekend but the drill bit broke in the brick so I wasn't able to finish this project. I bought these house numbers before I had even secured my loan (that should have been a sign) at Frontier (no website) in downtown Athens on Clayton. Great local products and unique gift items and it's rumored to be owned by one of the wives of a WP bandmember. I've found some great items for family and friends there. Plus these numbers for my house. This picture was taken on my coffee table but as soon as they're in their proper place, I'll post another picture

Yummy

I have found a new (and LOCAL) food blog to follow. And it's entitled after my favorite summer vegetable: OKRA.

Local Okra is based in Athens, GA and has great images as well as recipes to follow. I'm excited to try some of them and visit the co-op she mentions on her blog.

Shopping locally and supporting small and local business is a personal agenda of mine. My family owns a small business and I appreciate the customers who support us. I want to shop the ones who shop with us. And I want other small businesses to succeed. The dollar difference in price is so small in the long run and in the implications of our national economy as a whole. (Stepping down from the soap-box before I even get started...)

Back to Okra... my goal this summer is to figure out how to grill Okra, I had this dish last summer at Farm 255 and I fell in love. So I am determined to fix this dish for myself to enjoy. I grew up on fried okra (obviously the best way to eat it) but think the healthier option of grilling would be a good alternative.

So yeah for new blog friends and local food options. Gotta stop before my stomach starts grumbling...

mes excuses

There aren't nearly enough crutches in the world for all the lame excuses. - Marcus Stroup

I know I have neglected my blog and I am sorry. Everytime I think I've got a good momentum going, my life explodes upon itself.

I have a multitude of reasons including...
Massive projects at work.
Two different trips out of state.
Covering another area at work.
And a new home with an in progress kitchen.

But none of that from me. Instead, I'll make promises (empty?)to do better. Forget about the past and we'll move forward (hopefully) together.

Mommy-Blogging

If pregnancy were a book they would cut the last two chapters. ~Nora Ephron, Heartburn, 1983

This post is not an attack on mommy bloggers, I read a lot of them. And one daddy blogger, Daddy Scratches. And I love them. I love the stories of the funny things the kids to, their constant brushes with insanity, and of course, their delight in becoming pregnant and adding to their family.

But People, PLEASE!!!

Remember there are some of us out here that need some of the magic of gestation to be a mystery still. Some of you are telling every, single little detail... Is this so we all can sympathize or are you trying to scare us all into keeping are legs crossed for the rest of our lives?

One of my new favorite bloggers, Becoming Sarah wrote this post about her blue va-jay-jay and I'm sure at least one of you out there thinks that the title should have been my warning. But I proceeded down that path. At my future babies' peril, I might add. Bruised and Blue? Thanks but no thanks, I'll take being an aunt any day.

There's a reason why no one tells you about the stretch marks and the hemroids, the gas and the alien inside you feeling... otherwise, 99% of women would NEVER do that. And yes, there are those freaky women who know and still have a baby but the rest of us, the sane ones of us out here would never get pregnant.

I have one friend who says she won't do it again and her baby's 9 months old, she did not enjoy being pregnant and she had a fairly easy pregnancy. But giving up her body for that 10 months (any young mom will correct you that it's actually 10 months) was hard and she thinks there are plenty of adoptable kids out there who need good homes. A thought process with some logic me thinks.

So, mommy bloggers, please post some warnings or tell us the good too... Or else soon, we'll have a definite drop in the amount of pregnant women out there and we'll all be blaming the leaky boob post for that.