We spent our holiday weekend in beautiful Arkansas on our annual canoe trip with 21 of our best friends.  We stayed in an historic log cabin/lodge on a fabulous property that over looks the mountains.  Above is one of the many dew covered spider webs that decorates the property in the morning.  This one was about 4-ft tall.

Great fun was had by all, consequently the House of Antique is wiped out.   Kindergarten starts to day, so it’s a big day.  Lots to do — thoughts to think, memories to remember, words to write, clothes to wash, coffee to drink, naps to take….

More stories, more pictures, later….

Sean and Antique Mommy on the river.

This butterfly with her long delicate legs and beautiful but tattered costume reminds me of a ballerina.

Have a safe and lovely holiday weekend y’all.

There are not enough poems about geraniums.

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Scroll through comments for some very clever and lovely poems newly penned by my very clever and lovely readers!

PHOTOS TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE

I’m only going along with this picturing taking stuff because I know you have candy in your purse.

Ah-ah-ah… choooo!

Sneezing is universally funny.

I made my mom laugh!

Now go away crazy camera lady.

Saturday was Scott Kelby’s 2nd Annual World Wide Photo Walk.  People from all over the world in every major city, and some minor ones, met with other photographers and walked around taking pictures. I think there were over 32,000 people from 900 cities. Kinda cool, yes?

We had about 30 people in our group – amateurs and professionals, old and young, and in-between.  There was a father-daughter duo which I thought was really cool. I would love to do this with Sean next year.  Some people had incredible equipment and tripods and gadgets and others traveled light with just pocket point and shoot models.

The most challenging aspect of the photo walk was trying to get a shot without another photographer’s leg or head in the picture.  But, at the same time, I didn’t have to explain to anyone why I was taking a picture of industrial hardware or standing there staring at something waiting for the wind to blow just right or lying in the middle of the sidewalk.  Artsy photography people understand.

Here are some of my shots.

A dog improves almost any party.

This has been the summer of  The Antique’s Road Show.  The Antique’s have been going going gone all over the place.

This past week we were in the mid-west visiting my family.  The inside of my mother’s house makes me crazy because our housekeeping styles are so different, but the outside more than makes up for it.  She has something beautiful growing everywhere — vegetables, flowers and herbs.  I took about 1,000 pictures.  Seriously — 1,000 pictures. Nearly blew up my computer.

In other news, you may have noticed on my sidebar that I’m featuring Quinn Cumming’s new book Notes From the Underwire.  I had the chance to read it when it was in final manuscript stage and I loved it. I don’t know any other way to say it.  I’ll be writing more about it here this week or next (and doing a give away!) but I’ll tell you that it’s a collection of delightful, charming, funny short stories from her life as a former child star, daughter, mother, wife, homeowner, pet owner and you’ll love it. Unless you don’t like funny and crisply-written stories, then you won’t like it.

Okay, the laundry is mutating into new life forms, so I must attend to it.

All men dream, but not equally.

Those who dream by night, in the dusty recesses of their minds, awake to the day to find that it was vanity.

But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes to make it reality.

T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia)

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The reflective effect on this photo was achieved with just a few clicks of the mouse. It is a Photoshop action for both PS and PSE from the good people at PanosFX which you can download here for free.

Day by day, drop by drop, the world seeps in and crowds us out.

His daddy and I are in a race against the clock to lay a firm and level foundation that will last him a lifetime and withstand any storm.

Because already, there is a storm gathering in the distance.

We see it. We hear it. We know it is coming.

He’s interacting with the world more and more these days, independent of us.

He’s already heard the most corrupting lie ever told:  Everybody does it.

We try to teach him to stand apart with confidence, to not be Everybody.

We try to teach him that it’s better to be wise than smart.

We try to teach him that it’s better to be kind than accepted.

We try to teach him that good choices lead to goodness.

And every day that passes is one less day we have to  shore up the foundation of his life.

Our prayer for him is not wealth, health and happiness.

Our prayer for him is that goodness and mercy follow him all the days of his life.

I was going through a box of old photographs and came across this picture of my grandmother’s house.  I used to play on her front porch when I was a little girl and help her tend the big garden she had in the back.  Sometimes she would make a big pitcher of lemonade and I would sit on the steps and work on my cross stitch sampler.

No. Not really. I just totally made that up.

The  house in the aged photo is actually the one you see below.  Photos lie.  Whereas I only yank your chain.

This house is one of the original farmsteads in the town in which I live.  Long before there were neighborhoods with HOAs and The Gap and Chili’s around here, there was this farmhouse out in the middle of nowhere. Now it’s a museum of sorts.  Sean and I like to stop by and take pictures and pretend we live there.

The vintage affect was achieved with a Photoshop action which you can download here for free.