Our Photo Journey

Day seven of our photo journey … 

One of my biggest weaknesses is that I tend to have a slight case of tunnel vision. There can be an entire herd of cattle in front of me, but I will see, and focus in on, the one that catches my attention.

You cannot tell me that this isn’t the most adorable face that you have seen in a long time. Look at her! I bet the bulls chase this beauty all over. What do you mean you don’t see how gorgeous she is?

You must be blind! 🙂

Okay, if you don’t see what I see, have a closer look at those eyes! I bet she is thinking the same thing about me. Or, maybe she is just wondering when the crazy woman pointing the camera in her face is going to be dumb enough to try to climb across the fence.

Here I go again. There is a huge beautiful field and pond beyond here, but I have always loved old fences, so guess what I can see.

Yup! You guessed it.

I see the fence. Everything else is just an afterthought in the horizon.

Okay, I refuse to take the blame for this picture.

This is about the ugliest dang cow I have ever seen but I am telling you, she absolutely, positively, without a doubt, begged me to take her picture. Since my head was pretty much through the fence by this point, I figured I better go ahead and grant her wish.

I wonder if she would fit in my freezer . . .  🙂

Well what do you know? It turns out that if I look even a little bit beyond my own personal focus, sometimes I will find beauty that I didn’t even know was hiding there.

I hung on the fence and watched these beauties for close to an hour just enjoying this simple moment in my life.

Day six of our photo journey … 

If you are visiting my blog today with the hopes of finding new incredible pictures, you chose the wrong day to visit. 🙂
 
Do you ever have one of those days where you really don’t feel like doing a dang thing? You know what kind of day I mean.

One of those days where even getting dressed feels like it might be too much effort. The only thing you really want to do is curl up on the couch with a huge mug of coffee and your favorite novel.
 
That was me today.
 
Of course about halfway through my day of vegetating on the couch, I suddenly remembered my promise to take at least one photo a day for 30 days and began some serious grumbling.

I have to admit I was truly tempted to take a quick picture of the couch, but I resisted when the dogs started grumbling too.
 
 Okay…
 
 Okay…
 
 Okay…
 
I needed to go to the post office anyway, so I grabbed my camera while mumbling to myself that there must be something in town that I could take at least ONE picture of.

I figured that as a last resort you were going to be stuck with a picture of a fire hydrant since that was about how artistic I was feeling.

 
I walked out of the post office feeling just a bit better since somehow there wasn’t even one single bill in the mail. How exciting is that? 🙂

So maybe, just maybe I would take ONE more picture, but dang it, there better be something worth looking at right on this same block because that is just about how long I intended to be out there.
 
Oh yessssss! Right across the street there is this incredible mural on the side of the old dry cleaners. And, with a zoom lens I don’t have to take a single step. Zoom in, click the shutter and I’ve got it!

Yeah, I know I could have taken a few extra moments to at least crop the picture and make it all pretty like for ya, but I wanted you to see that it really is on the side of an old building.

Besides, I am pretty sure I can hear the couch calling my name . . .

Day five of our photo journey …

Just about anywhere you go in our town you can see the steeple of the First Baptist Church. Even at night you can see the lights softly illuminating different parts of the building.

I don’t know why I find comfort in that thought. When I am feeling a little lost, I think perhaps it feels like a reminder to me that God is always there to help me find my way back again, even during the darkest of times.

Day four of our photo journey begins …

Leaving the house with no particular destination in mind, I am not surprised to find myself in the country, wandering near the fields, and then into the woods, to special hideaways that bring me comfort.

There is something about barbed wire that fascinates me. I think it is the thought that I can wrap my heart in barbed wire to keep me safe.

Just a few steps beyond there though, I begin to understand that even with the barbed wire fence, life continues to grow right over the top of it, and actually flourish.

And, if I choose to step out into the sunshine, I find nature handing me a bouquet of beautiful wildflowers.

If you have been following our quest to take at least one picture a day for 30 days, you already know that today is day three of our photo journey. However, what you might not know is that today a special twist was added to the challenge.

For one day, I wasn’t to take pictures of Haley. Instead I needed to take pictures of what she told me to. The mission was to make a beautiful picture. Her job was to tell me what she thinks might make a beautiful picture My job was to make the beautiful picture. Haley was to be “in charge” for the day.

Just in case there was someone who wasn’t sure, Haley felt that we definitely needed a picture to make things very clear. Yes, that is her thumb in the picture but we were too chicken to ask someone to hold the notebook for us, and the wind kept blowing the pages!

We were barely out of the house when Haley knew exactly what picture she wanted. She wanted me to take a picture of the castle! You want a picture of what? The castle mom. Ummm… Can you show me where this castle is? Yup! Okay Haley, you’re in charge, but please tell me that I don’t have to trespass to take the picture!

In the tiny town of Coffeeville (population 947) there has to be at least 50 of these signs, but Haley had to have a pictures of this particular one because of the flowers nearby. Of course this required slamming on the brakes in front of a full cement truck while trying to find a place to pull over, but we got the picture. 🙂

It took us all of about 15 seconds to discover that Haley’s idea of beauty and mine were several worlds apart, but I don’t think we have ever had quite as much fun as we did today, especially when I tried to explain that there was no way in heck that I was going to take a picture of the totally hot guy in wranglers that was working in his yard, no matter who was in charge.

Shhhhh…. Don’t tell anyone that Haley was the model for this picture! We have no idea why we like this picture so much, except maybe there is just something comforting about a girl hanging out in the bleachers in her scuffed up boots and favorite old jeans.

Last on her list of pictures that she wanted to get was an old tractor in the middle of a field. You have no idea how long we looked for this particular scene or how many mosquito bites I ended up with getting this shot.

At one point it was very tempting to find a new tractor and age it later in an image editor. There was something gratifying about sticking it out until we found what she was looking for though.

As we headed home, Gary Allen started singing Life Aint Always Beautiful on the radio. Listening to the words telling us that struggles make you stronger, and the changes make you wise, life aint always beautiful but it’s a beautiful ride, we couldn’t help but smile.

Spending a day looking at beauty through the eyes of someone else, I learned some stuff that I wasn’t expecting. By not being able to take pictures of Haley, I realized that I was still struggling to find beauty in the world around me. I realized that all of the pictures I had taken this week were of Haley, with the world blurred out in the background.

And, just maybe Haley was sometimes having as hard of a time explaining exactly what she wanted as I was having understanding.

We figured this out when she was trying to explain the angle she wanted me to use for a picture of a stalk of corn. Sorry folks, this one was a lost cause no matter how hard we tried to make it beautiful!

Sometimes maybe you have to lean on each other and work together as a team. Working together towards a common goal, we found a special bond, and laughed more than we have in ages.

Remind me to tell you the story sometime about getting caught sneaking into the country club to get a picture of the 10th hole that Haley wanted!

Thanks For Being A Part Of Our Lives!

We weren’t positive the weather was going to cooperate with us, but we woke up on a mission to keep our promise.

We were off in search of a place to take at least one picture.

Although we had a brief moment of hesitation when we noticed that someone had been using this sign for target practice, this seemed as good a place as any to start day two of our journey through 30 days of at least one picture a day.

Okay, so it isn’t exactly ocean front property but we had found our perfect little hideaway, and at least there’s some water, right?

Haley seems to be rethinking this whole photo journal idea. Or maybe she isn’t confident yet about the location we selected. We remind each other that we already have two pictures and we only promised one.

Haley decides that maybe she needs just one more minute to think this whole thing through.

Well as long as we are already here maybe we should go ahead and have a look around and maybe even take a few more pictures.

We have some important writing in the sand we need to do though.

We have to show everyone that is it day two of our journey.

I waited all day for that magic moment when Haley would give into the temptation to play in the water and start having some fun. More than anything I wanted to see her smile, but above all, I wanted to hear her laughter. I wasn’t disappointed.

A quick peek at the stormy sky tells us it is time to call an end to day two of our photo expedition! We had a blast and created a new memory. What more could we ask for?

Thanks for sharing our day with us!