2011 Favorites

I had a hard time choosing my favorite photos from 2011.  I started to go through all of the photos on my hard drive, then I realized that would take a month of Sundays, so I just took my favorites from my Project 365.   
Without further ado, here are my favorite photos from 2011.

Here is JJ, just after midnight on January 1, 2011.  The lighting isn't great, the photo is a little noisy, but I just plain old like it.



I took this one of my son, just after I got my D7000.  It was dark so I cranked up the ISO and didn't care about the noise because I love action shots.  I was so glad I did because I am in love with this shot.  I entered it in one the The Pioneer Woman's contest and she chose it for one of the groups.  It wasn't a finalist, but that doesn't matter to me.  It also happens to be my son's favorite photo of the year.  By the way, the ball did not hit him.



I love my cats.  Poor Einstein was left alone after we had to put our other two cats to sleep within five months of each other.  We adopted Chester and you can see just how Einstein felt about that at first.  I like to imagine he is looking at me, saying, "Seriously?"



We took our kids to Riviera Maya this year.  It was their first time in the ocean.  We snorkeled every day.  I couldn't justify the underwater housing for my D7000, so I took a chance on a Dicapac.  It's a Ziploc Baggie on steroids, with an opening for the lens.  My little Canon Powershot did a great job.  The only issue was that I had NO idea where I was aiming.



Here is my daughter, heading to her first softball tournament.  I love her experssion and I think that she has the most beautiful eyes. 



In November, we played hooky from school and took the kids to St. Louis.  These kids grew up together in playgroup, from the time my daughter was 6 months old.  We were so excited to go to the Arch and then it was foggy.  Total bummer.  We had lots of fun anyway.

I totally fell in love with this car.  It was parked at one of my son's baseball games.  It was an exercise in composition as there was an UGLY chain link fence off to the left and lots of cars parked around it.



This was photo 365 of my Project 365 and I love love love it.  We went out to dinner for my birthday and then ate so much that we decided to walk around the outdoor mall.  All of the Christmas lights were up and they were just gorgeous.  And, of course, I go NOWHERE without my camera, so while my family shopped, I played with bokeh.

Eleven

This child, my first-born, eleven years old, lover of sports, speaker of a million words, maker of random noises, is going to be the death of me. I adore him. He is a good boy. He is smart. He has fantastic manners. He is kind-hearted. He is goofy and makes me laugh. He is also competitive. I won't say where that came from. It certainly wasn't from his mother. (Ahem.) Yesterday, we were out in my mom and dad's backyard, playing catch. Now, I'll be honest with you: until a couple of years ago, playing catch was not exactly fun. It consisted of me tossing the ball to KJ and praying that it didn't hit him in the face. And then he would chase it down then throw it back to (nowhere near) me. Lather, rinse, repeat. As he has gotten older, catch has actually become fun. We are able to both throw the ball and catch it. It's a miracle. This year, KJ is playing travel ball for the first time. So, we've ramped up the competitiveness just a bit. Let's go back to the bakyard, where mother and son are enjoying a nice game of catch. I finally feel confident enough in KJ's ability to catch the ball that I don't need to throw nicely with him. So, after we warmed up, I started throwing a little harder. I let loose with one and his eyes got all big and he said, "Mom, I didn't know you could throw the ball hard." What's a mom to do? I started throwing a little harder yet and he kept making these faces at me like he was absolutely amazed. I'll admit, it made me smile. I love the fact that my throwing ability impressed an 11-year-old boy. What more can a mom ask for than to amaze her kids? We kept throwing and it didn't take long for me to get a little wild. KJ thought I was doing it on purpose: throwing risers and curveballs. He kept asking me how I did it. I don't have a clue. I just grab the ball and throw and it does wacky stuff (just ask my sister, who played first base to my shortstop for several years.) But I kept throwing because I was impressing my kid. And that made me happy. And I woke up this morning with a seriously stiff shoulder. All in the name of winning the adulation of my eleven-year-old son. Yes, it was worth it.

For your enterainment...

I was going through old pictures today, trying to delete some so that I don't end up on some "Hoarders: Digital Files" reality show, when I came across this affront to nature.
The setting: Valentine's Day, 2008. I was still a stay-at-home mom at this point in time and thought that I'd follow that old Fifties textbook ideal of how to be a proper wife (but just this once.) I put my hair in curlers while putting on some make up. My hair doesn't take curl very well, so I made sure to put lots of gel on it and leave those curlers in for an extra long time.
When I took those curlers out, I was hoping for long, flowing tresses. What I ended up with was Napoleon Dynamite. Am I wrong? I think that my hair shortened up a good 6" from those "long flowing curls." It's quite fetching, don't you think?
"Why do you still have this photo?" you may wonder. It's a question that is begging to be asked. "Why even take a photo in the first place?" is probably an even better question. I could give you a long philosophical answer about how strongly I feel about documenting my life, as well as the lives of the people I love. But I'll save you the soapbox lecture and say that I took this picture because it's hilarious. And I keep it, honestly, because it's hilarious. I don't ever want to take life too seriously. Life it too short to worry about projecting an image of perfection. If you can't laugh at yourself, well, then, life just can't be very fun.
My favorite part? Check out my shirt: "Defy Gravity" indeed.

Truth in Advertising

I am not a neat person. Never have been, never will be. When I was in high school, my mom was a stickler for a clean room. I was not allowed to leave the house unless my room was picked up. She always thought she had me: my room would be a DISASTER and then three minutes later I would be out the door. She finally figured out my secret: I had a junk drawer under my bed. I'd just cram everything in there, pray the drawer would close and then magically the room would be spotless. I give her credit. She let me keep that drawer as long as the rest of the room was clean.

As an adult, I have the guest room. I remember one year, I hosted my book club Christmas party. I ran around the house, picking up everything that didn't have a home and shoved it in that room, closed the door and felt pretty proud of myself. I was showing my friends around the house when my dear friend Erin said, "What's this?" and opened the guest room door. My secret was out.

So now I am over it. I have clutter. Let the world know! I'm not a hoarder. (I have another friend who is a personal organizer and sometimes I call her just to double check that I am not hoarding.) My house is lived in and if you come over, feel free to prop your feet up. My house is a home, not a museum.

In celebration on my style of living, here are the things on my dining room table right now:

1. A Nerf basketball for the hoop hanging just round the corner on the coat closet door.
2. A foam hockey puck. Don't ask.
3. A 3-ring binder of my son's drawings.
4. My son's science homework.
5. Two opened boxes of Girl Scout cookies.
6. Various plastic cups. My kids are all about cup-stacking ever since they lost TV and video game privileges.
7. Various pencils and erasers.
8. A Snowman decoration that should have been put away a month ago.
9. A candle that I don't even like the smell of. (That's a terrible sentence. Is it even a sentence?)
10. A 2" stack of papers to go through.
11. Crumbs, cat hair and various random objects.

So there. That's me. And that's clean for that table.

Oh, the humanity!

My book club holds our annual Christmas party in January. It's just easier that way. We all have young kids and lots of family and the month of December is a sprint as it is.
This year, I decided to take my birthday present with me: Just Dance II for the wii. I love to dance. I have zero rhythm, no moves, but I sing really loud and smile a lot to make up for it. In my Shannon-logic, I decided that asking for that game for my birthday would help me learn some moves, thereby rendering me awesome at age 37. Have I mentioned that I was once so sure of my moves that I actually tried out for Poms? Oh my gosh, what a ridiculous idea that was. This body was not meant for dancing. I look like an 80-year-old woman with a bad back. On no, that's how I feel...
I digress. As usual.
The first time I played, I cracked poor Keebles in the head three times with my Wii-mote. It's a good thing that she is such a good sport, or she has a really hard head.
When we played at the Christmas party, I didn't hurt anyone (bonus) and I was lucky enough to have friends willing to document my awesomeness in photos. (Please know that this is written fully in sarcasm font.)
So, here I am, rocking out some song at 11:30 at night in my friend's basement. I have no earthly idea what I am doing, but I'll be sure to break this movie out at my cousins wedding in April. I think I'll call it "Monthly Self-Exam."

Karma

Yes. I am sitting here with kleenex shoved up my nostrils. Don't judge. You know you've been there. If I don't, there will be a disgusting and steady "drip drip" sound as...well, you get the picture.

It started as a sneezing fit when I got to work this morning. I thought I was having an allergy attack. I am pretty sure I am allergic to my cats; I ignore this fact.

I kept sneezing and sneezing. And then I went to talk to the school secretary and she said, "Are you sure it's allergies?"

And I stopped.
And thought: J has been sick ever since he got back from Singpore three and a half weeks ago. KJ has had a cough for a month now. Keebles has had a sore throat and a cough for a month. Neither kid has been so sick that they needed to miss school. It's been more of a minor annoyance.
I work in an elementary school.
And the whole time, I've been thinking to myself, "Well, look at me, I'm healthy as a horse. For once it's me with the strong immune system.
"Crap."

And I immediately left school and went straight to the store and bought a box of Cold-Eze and three boxes of kleenex. I spent the rest of the day at work with my two new best friends: Kleenex and Hand Santizer. Both my nose and my hands are now peeling.

I just did a shot of Ny-Quil.

Cold-Eze, work your magic. Cut the duration of this cold in half, like the box promises.

Please?