13 posts tagged “arizona”
For the first time in the many times the kids have gone back and forth between the Ex and I... This time feels permanent. She is almost 18 this time, she has a partner that she is moving in with. She is making plans for her future. It has left me with a bit of an empty spot.
I joked for years about how I would never NEVER suffer from empty nest syndrome. Actually looked forward to finally having time to do all those things that I wanted to do! But with the daughter moved out and the addition of my youngest hardly ever home due to football and his new found friends. The house is just... too quiet. All the places I wanted to take the kids to see, the places to do stuff, movies, games... they are no longer young enough to appreciate it anymore. It's all a headache to them to do silly stuff like going sight seeing, going for long rides, having their pics taken in front of silly stuff. They have their own agenda's now.
Sooo... my secret is trying not to dwell on it. I have gotten alot of editing done and my house is really really clean lol. I am starting to have time to stop and smell the flowers. I got my backyard looking awesome yesterday, hammock is set-up. Workout bench and some seating for if the son has friends over to lift weights. Pic-nic table, yard is weeded.. yeah it was gorgeous outside yesterday and I didn't have to stop mid job to drive anyone anywhere woot!!!
I noticed a bit of change in my editing last night, I think it may be from the changes in my life, I got an invite from a "whimsical group".. a year ago I was getting invites from groups catering to goth and graveyards. So yeah things are starting to look up! :D
So, where to start.
It's only 10:00 a.m. and I have...
half of my laundry done already
vacuuming done
dishes done
living room done
beds stripped
Still need to do...
yard work (that will have to wait now.. too hot!)
counters wiped down
floors mopped
bathrooms cleaned
So basically I am half done with chores yay!
The best and worst of the deal... I now have an extra room of my own to do with as I please. The daughter moved back to Illinois, Arizona was too hard on her. 18, out of school, no friends... She moved back to her hometown. I can't blame her, it's hard to start all over in a new place when you know no one. At her age you need friends, it takes years to learn that you can amuse yourself right? Ok.. we always need friends who am I kidding!
So at first, I thought hey, I can get some stuff out of storage and go through it in there.. then I got it cleaned up and saw this little sign I had made for my last work out room and decided hell with storage space, I need my work out room back! So that will be my last chore of the day. Moving all my work out gear in there! One thing that is totally cool out here in AZ is that the weight bench can be left outside! Glad I don't have to bring that in. The nights and dawn are perfect for working out too, nice and cool.
Fall is almost here, I am looking forward to a nice warm (not hot) season. I have intermittent bouts of missing New England, but we have plans to drive up to the Flagstaff/Sedona area soon. That should be enough to remind me of how green the world is :)
I am also slowly getting back into editing mode. I have been scrounging around in my older albums and looking at alot of photos in a whole new light! It is such a good idea to never delete old photos, beauty that may not be here today, might show up tomorrow!
Hope everyones summer was great and not too wet!
And ooooh we have sooo much sunshine!
I am loving living in AZ, quite simply it has given me the love of my art back again.
I spent the day editing and talking to an old friend from my Star Wars Galaxies days. We reminisced and looked at old screenshots and sighed over the loss of what should have been one of the best games in the history of MMO's.
All in all, life is good! The hubby just got word from the boss that he is going to bumped up to Manager in about 2 weeks. This means guaranteed income now yay! But.. the best part is that means that he is going to be in charge of the store that will be opening up here in our neck of the woods.. double yay!
So yeah.. life is good, the sun is shining, the house is getting organized, the sun is shining, life is getting normal.. the sun is shining... :) Yeah, the sun is shining!
First is a lily of the valley macro that I took this past spring, I decided to look up a bit of the history about it while I was editing it and came up with almost a card look.
We felt like Pilgrims on our trek across the country. I couldn't think of anything to do with this pic other than the mundane.. which I can't do!
Saying farewell to the Ozarks.
My first incoming monsoon. I took this pic as the storm was deciding on if it wanted to grow or shrink!
Backing up to 2008 and our cruise on The Music Boat. Leaving port in Miami.
Another pic from The Music Boat Cruise. We took an off boat expedition to Tulum Mayan Temples. This piece of art pre-dates the 1600's!
A boat that someone had pulled ashore on the Tulum Mayan Temple shoreline.
I like to call it *Home*... Arizona baby, granted this is a bit farther north. Heading up towards Sedona. Such grandeur and beauty.
Yes, I sat down today and spent the day doing near nothing. Well besides waiting til almost noon to go to the storage shed when the weather warnings said not to do anything in the mid day due to the heat warnings.. So I am a newb to the desert... hang me out to dry with the rattlers ;)
As to the rest of my lazy day, well I actually got some editing done. My new header for instance. That moon is smiling over Texas. The first rest stop that we got to after entering that beautiful state we had to pull over so that I could photograph a monsoon cloud that we had been watching off to our right. Then I turned around and saw a beautiful full moon watching me, so I decided to watch him! I finally got to use my big telescopic lens yay!
Here is the monsoon cloud that we pulled over to watch. It is a bit grainy due to the fact that it was nearly full night time when I took it so I had to leave the shutter open for a bit to catch it.
But without further ado, here are the cows with the blooming Monsoon cloud in the distance.
We're down to the wire here, only 1 more week til D-Day! The 15th is the son's last day of school and then we're free and clear to head out!
The hubby suprised me last night by picking me up a Gisteq GPS for my camera since we're going to be driving cross country and I know for a fact that there is no way I am going to remember every remote stop we make across the way to take pics. I have wanted one of these for soooo very long! I just hope that it gets here in time and doesn't delay our leave date hehe.
So nothing else new here, with all the packing going on I have not even wanted to pick up the cam nor edit any pics I already have, let's hope that this changes once we get un-packed in Arizona!
And that is about it. Coffee is starting to kick in and if I don't get off my behind and start working I will lose my motivation for the day!
Arizona or Bust!
So, I say again, do I need anymore reason to move? My mom keeps calling me asking me, "Are you sure you want to move to AZ.. it is sooooooo hot there!"
It is frickin 90 degrees here today. Humidity is through the roof and will probably stay that way til the last year of constant rain/snow finally melts. But by the time it is mid May the hot weather will be gone and the summer will be lucky to reach 70 again like last year. Man it was a cold summer last year.
Yeah I bitch about this place waaaay too much don't I?
I think I have reason though, really I do, coldest friggen winters I have ever been through, scalding hot springs, freezing summers. What an ass backwards area this is. Oh and lets not forget all the assholes who seem to live near me. I woke up to a nice suprise Sunday morning, after my kids had been busting their ass all day Saturday raking the yard clean, my asshole backyard neighbor, the one I bitched about two years ago for cutting down almost every tree in his yard... well this asshat got up at the buttcrack of dawn and had raked all the garbage from his yard and was raking it into ours! I seriously sat there at the bathroom window with my mouth agape. I will be so fricken glad to be away from this totally fucked up town and all the assholes who live here. I guess there really is a reason why Massachusetts residents are called Massholes...
Anyway...*thinking happy thoughts*
I totally love B&H, check it out, Saturday night I am browsing the canon photography on net site looking at DIY stuff that I can do and came across a guy who uses a macro coupler and a lightbulb went off cause I had forgotten about Raymond mentioning just that idea a year or so ago. So anyways, Saturday night and I hit the B&H site and order a macro coupler and chose the cheapest S&H that they have. Yeah sure, it might not be here for a week or two but whatever, it is not a life or death matter. So today, 2 business days later the UPS truck pulls up and it is here!
So, it may take me a bit to actually get the images crisp, but half the fun of macro photography is the learning :). Not that I see myself having much time for photographing, let alone editing! Believe it or not this post has now taken a few hours to write lol. Everything is so crazy busy here ugh. I have yet to even get around to editing the pics from my Arizona trip, let alone Cape Cod and any macro images. BTW I am sooo looking forward to spending more time with WPG . That little lady is amazing let me tell you. She has some good stuff happening in her life as well, if you haven't checked out here blog you should do so!
So back to what I came here for in the first place, to put up the couple images that I have gotten around to editing and then back to trying to pack in this God awful humidity. Spring in New England, it's enough to kill even the stubborn I tell ya!
First Cape Cod since that is the order of the images :)... This is an adorable little coffee shop right next to the City Hall. Sadly City Hall was in the midst of major renovations so there is not much to show there. There are lots more images of Cape Cod coming some day ;)
I think I want to grunge up this pic a bit, it is just too clean looking...
Second, my first attempt at using my wannabe macro lense coupler. Not quite crisp enough but practice should make perfect some day :)
And, it is raining... has been since I got home pretty much. Did I need anymore reason to want to move you ask?
I am also just blah, so just going to post the pics I edited today and turning in early, will try to write something witty tomorrow... I think the sun will be out also, they are calling for a gorgeous weekend!
Yes, I am on vacation, and house hunting and feel the need to post :)
This time away from every day life has really been great for me. Within minutes of boarding the plane my mind was working overtime with stories and poetry. I started writing and haven't stopped since we took off. I now have a total of 9 works that have been hiding away in my mind the past year or so. Dormancy is such an awful thing isn't it?
I was watching one of those CSI types of shows the other night, there was some college kid who was a math wiz and also had some kind of psychosis. He had stopped taking his meds because the meds took away his ability to do genius math skills. Not sure if it is true or not, but they were saying that the part of the brain that is where your math smarts are is also the part that controls psychosis. So to stop one from reacting you have to stop both essentially.
I find myself wondering if all artistic types deal with the same bouts of depression. Maybe depression is based in the same part of the brain as serotonin is created... just a bit of theory on my mind lately.
So, I just need to remind myself of this every time the depression gets a hold and just remember that I have a beautiful mind.
I don't have my editing programs so I have only uploaded one pic for now that was literaly on my mind since I took it, I just knew it was beauty and perfection and the base of what I image of Arizona. Even looking through my little 3" screen I wanted to see this pic edited or not :)... enjoy!
2 days, well technically 40 hours and counting. Arizona is calling me... Home!
Well my soon to be home that is.
I cannot wait, 2 weeks of gorgeous, glorious warm weather and I will actually be able to see sunsets and sunrises again! *Something I sorely miss living in the midst of these huge mountain ranges here* Not that there is a thing wrong with the mountain ranges here, I absolutely adore the region, but there is like nowhere within reasonable driving distance of me to get a good sunrise/sunset over the horizon view!
I am praying that we find *THE HOUSE* that we're wanting to live in for quite a while to come, (in reality I know we are only going to be there for maybe a decade at most, I love moving!) But it is nice to fantasize about living in the same house for years and years. Sitting on the front porch in matching rocking chairs as old age claims us. That is just so not me though, I can't wait to get older and buy one of those funky winnebago's and just drive all over America, then when we have been coast to coast and seen all there is here... Off to Europe it will be!
I don't think I have ever lived in any one home for more than 5 years in my whole adult life. Some might consider that sad, but I look at it as exciting in a way. I never get bored with where I live thats for sure! Maybe some day I might finally settle down, perhaps in some Italian villa, or hmm maybe a yurt in Kathmandu or... maybe my bones will be dug up ten thousand years from now in some Scottish bog ;)
So yesterday I started a list of things that I will "Not have" as part of my life in a few months, it is also the inspiration for today's image. The hubby and I were driving around last summer on one of the scenic routes out here, I think it was 8A, if I haven't said it in the past, I am saying it now. If you ever get to Massachusetts, you simply must drive 8A, pick it up in either Conn. or Vermont, and just drive the whole route, you will not be disappointed! Make sure to get out of the car whenever possible and explore also, there are lots of hidden waterfalls and wow just too much to list!
Leaving everything familiar behind...
Sights,
Smells,
Memories,
No more cornfields or fall colors
No more heavy sweaters every morning of the year
No more winter jackets needed over 6 months of the year
No more digging out of snow storms
No more frozen fingers, numb ears, frosty breath fogging up your glasses making it impossible to see through
No more snow angels, or... yellow snow
No more walking like a penguin, waddling while in layer upon layer of clothing, arms outstretched to keep balance on the ice
No more dense forest growth with fairy dreams just waiting to be awoken
No more beautiful rock walls, bubbling brooks or cow fields
No more fields of rolling green
No more bears foraging in the yard
No more tall tall trees... a plus and a minus considering that they also block all the sunlight :)
No more New England history
No more living around the corner from Tanglewood with summer nights on the lawn listening to the Boston Symphony Orchestra
No more eating at Joes Diner, the inspiration for "The Runaway" by Norman Rockwell
No more Shakespear and Co around the block
This move is such a mixed blessing/nightmare. For the first time ever I have had time to think about a move and find myself actually sick at heart thinking of moving from this area. But at the same time the people who live here are all so very fake, I have posted about that for the past several years, nothing has changed in that time. I pray to God that this is the right thing to do. I feel in my heart that it is and keep asking for guidance on this choice, the fact that I have not just come right out and changed my mind leads me to believe it is right. I am still waiting for one of the dreams where he talks to me again but so far no show.. at least that I remember that is!
