I’m pretty happy that I have only missed writing a post the two days that I was out of town this month. I could not convince myself to try blogging from my phone. Still, maybe there’s hope for me figuring out the whole consistency thing after all. Maybe not, we shall see.  🙂

Today I want to get caught up on the Photo 101 prompts.  I don’t usually get this far in monthly ‘challenges’ to myself so in the interest of not cheating and skipping any prompts here are the two I missed.

Landmark:

After you walk a little bit into the woods across the way from my neighborhood you run into this bathtub with a working well pump in the middle of a clearing.  There are a couple of picnic tables there too.  It really threw us for a loop for a while but we used it as our landmark to tell family how far we were going to go.  Meet you at the tub!

We figured out after going for a while that this is a spot where a lot of people camp with horses and the tub is for watering the horses.  Not as good as the initial mystery but still pretty cool.

Warmth:

I took my lunch time walk in a different direction Friday and since it was a somewhat shadowy walk I looked for places the sun shone through the trees on an area. I didn’t quite catch what I wanted but I still like the pictures. And the multiple pictures gave me a chance to try out the whole gallery thing.  Kind of neat.

How would you picture warmth?  Would it be something like my pictures or would you go for something that portrayed warmth as an emotion? Maybe something else entirely?

You know how ‘a body in motion stays in motion’ and all that?  Well, my life has a slightly modified law which is, ‘once I mess something up it shall only get more messed up for the rest of the night’.  This is true when practicing my forms at Tae Kwon Do, it’s true of a bad run, and it’s true when I get lost.

It’s that last one that happened in such grand style Thursday night I have to tell you about it.

Lately my GPS has been acting weird and telling me that it has lost it’s power source and will turn off in 30 seconds every few minutes while I’m driving. Mind you, it’s plugged in at the time. Annoying but since I hold the GPS on my steering wheel while driving not a total disaster.

Thursday I was going to a restaurant in Tampa that I’d never been to before and since I was worried about my GPS I also used Google maps on my phone, which I never did before. I was pulling out of the parking lot at work and my GPS told me ‘turn right on Linebaugh’.  At the same time Google told me ‘turn left on Linebaugh’.  And so went the rest of the drive.  In spite of that I got there on time and with no problems (though I accidentally parked behind the restaurant and took a few minute to figure out where I was supposed to be). I knew I was using up an awful lot of luck right there.

So on to the Straz Center.  The person I was supposed to be following turned left, Google said turn right.  Quite the rebel, Google.  Turns out traffic was thick enough I finally turned right just to be able to pull out. Sorry for doubting you Google.  I found the place no problem, but I did go around the block 3 times finding the parking garage that was kind of in plain site.  All well and good.

Then I wanted to get home.  No matter how many times I typed my address into Google it said there was no such thing.  I figured out after I got home it was changing FL into flight instead of Florida. Yes, I turned off stupid spell correction immediately.  My evil cracked out GPS would not even turn on for the first time ever. I (in all my wisdom) decided screw it, I have to run into a freeway soon no matter what direction I go in, right?

Lets just pause here a moment for the photo prompt of the day.  Mystery. What? You don’t think this quick pic captures the meaning of mystery? Well read on fearless reader, read on.

Of course the first thing I did was turn the wrong way and go over a draw bridge. Fifty third u-turn of the night, many more to come. After passing several signs for the 275 south and none for the 275 N (home sweet home was north) I decided screw it, I’ll get on going south and then get off and back on going north.  Because there is ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS a way to get right back on the freeway in the other direction.  Right?

Not so much.  I got off after going a wee bit out of the way (passing a couple of probably nice, probably drug dealers on really, really dark and decrepit streets) with no way home in site and now a good 5 miles further away.

I gave up and just started driving and because the streets in Florida are really, really weird I eventually ran back into the 275 and was able to get on the the right direction, I made it home and everything.

But it just goes to prove, mystery (like everything else) is defined by the moment.Oh yeah, in the name of full disclosure I also got lost in the (stupid) parking garage trying to find my car.

I am SO happy to be typing this at home.  🙂

I have to say, I expected this show to be funny but I didn’t expect it to have as many laughs as it did.  Some of the laughs where OMG that’s funny, some of the laughs where OMG I can’t believe they just did that.  Definitely not a show for the whole family!  So ya, I loved it.

I was also pretty impressed that they did all of the necessary scenes – the bad, bad, evil trees scene (they lowered everyone’s karma in the room by making us laugh so much at this), the chainsaw scene, all the good stuff.

My favorite part?  The fact that they embraced campy in every way possible.  If you are in Tampa and free this Saturday or Sunday night you should absolutely go see it – You can get your tickets on Straz Center’s website.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get any pictures, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.  Evil Dead the Musical is playing in more places than Tampa (I know, what? why?) – you can follow Evil Dead The Tour  on Twitter to see if they are coming to your town.  If you go come back and tell me what you thought!

I received two tickets to Evil Dead the Musical in exchange for writing a review. As always, my opinions are all mine.

I think that nature is healing. Think about it, when you are in a house full of sick people don’t you feel the need to open up the house and let the fresh breeze come through?

Of course, when nature is in the form of a shark following you it doesn’t see quite so healing but everything has it’s down sides.  And it does make a pretty neat story.

The photo prompt today was ‘the natural world’. That’s one I can get pretty easily! This is a picture that I actually took with the prompt ‘connect’ in mind because of the way that 4 different plants are all intertwined. I like the way the dry moss frames the other plants.

I want to share a second picture that illustrates the natural world in an equally honest way these days.  Nature and us humans (I know we are animals but I can’t quite bring myself to label much of what we do as part of the natural world) have become intertwined on a daily basis.

I passed these two while driving out of my neighborhood.  I took the picture out the window of my car.  These birds are incredibly cool, and here in this neck of the woods they are seen pretty often.  A couple live in both Publix parking lots that I shop at.  They must like the relatively clear space because I only ever see them in parking lots and neighborhoods – never in the woods or non-humanized places around here.

See why I love Florida?  It’s a wee bit like living in a zoo. We’ve also spotted wild boars, 2 bear cubs, and a wildcat or two while driving. And of course tons of armadillos and possums when running at night. Oh, and sometimes bunnies which always makes me smile.  You never outgrow getting excited when you see a wild rabbit do you?

Cross your fingers for me that I never run into a boar while running, I’d probably have a heart attack even if it saw me and ran the other way.

What creatures do you find in your neighborhood?

How do you connect with your family?  Today’s photo prompt was connect – and as usual a few ideas came to mind but I decided to go with family.  A couple years ago we all REALLY connected –  everyone got together, and went tubing for a few hours – with all of our tubes tied together.  This picture is about a quarter of the total.

I connect with my daughter usually doing things like watching Supernatural and Walking Dead (Do I get an awesome mom of the year award for that?) or hysterical videos she is always showing me of things like this. Strangely addictive.  You’re welcome.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diU70KshcjA?rel=0]

Then there’s my son’s, our biggest thing right now is Tae Kwon Doe, but there’s also the occasional Mine Craft session.  I’ll spare you a photo.  🙂

I swap seeds and gardening photos with one of my nieces, talk dinosaurs and super heroes with my littlest nephews, everyone has their own thing!

How about you, is there any particular way you connect with your family? Do you find yourself doing completely different things with everyone in the family?

I decided to try something completely different for me for this post.  That was supposed to be the point of this month, right?  I prefer to take pictures of non-human animals and of places and things but today I had my daughter (an actual person!) pose for my pictures.  The prompt today was solitude.  As my daughter COULD be mistaken for the girl from The Ring she was perfect.

As usual I couldn’t pick out my favorite picture but instead of creating a collage of my choices I though I would just post them individually and ask you to let me know which one you like best for the prompt ‘solitude’.

  You can see that they are all 3 really the same picture, it’ just a slight style difference.  You can also see that they are taken with a cell phone camera and that I haven’t had it long enough to figure out the settings.  🙂 We were asked to use the ‘rule of three’ when framing the shots, which is why I tried the different angles of the same shot. Ignoring the quality of the photo, what do you think?

The photo prompt today was bliss.  What’s bliss? Happiness and joy and all that sort of thing.

I can think of lots of images to represent bliss. Everything from a dog let outside the first time coming home from the shelter, to pictures of family, to images not so appropriate for my blog.  But as I was trying to think of what to take a photo of while driving in to work this morning really all I could think of was why on earth was traffic moving so slow all morning and how was it possible that I sat at the same light 3 times? I should have been to work early and now if I sat here long enough I was going to be late.

And then I saw this. BLISS.

Green means GO!

Funny how a word can mean different things at different times.  What’s your interpretation of bliss?

It’s only about 10:00, this still counts as Wednesday.  🙂

The prompt for today’s photo is water.  That kind of made me laugh because I realized that most of my pictures are of water.  Easy peasy.  In the interest of fair play I went on my lunch break today and took a few pictures.  As seems be the trend I couldn’t decide on my favorite so I cheated and created another collage.  I cheat at pool too, these things are out of my control. Really.

I actually do have a favorite, it’s the middle picture. I love photos of reflections on water where you can hardly tell which way is up and which way is down.

Water, water everywhere.

Now that I’ve decided to follow the Photo 101 prompts I’ve suddenly thought of all kinds of other things to write about too.  I’m busily getting back into running and the garden is (semi) growing again, tae kwon do is going well. If all of that isn’t enough to inspire me I’m heading out this weekend to the WOWsummit in Orlando. If you are in the area check out their site. It’s a weekend full of healthy parenting speakers and brands like Zevia and EnviroKidz giving out samples and answering questions.  I’m pretty excited about it and hoping to find some healthy, non-GMO products that my kids will love.  I’m not sure how I’m going to do on my photo prompts while I”m there though!

The photo prompt today was streets.   I love pictures of streets, trails, and rivers; they look inviting and always make me wonder what is just around the next bend.  If you ever were to look through my pictures on my computer there is a disproportional amount of them of rivers and trails.

It just so happens I took the picture below on on my way home from work right before I got the photo prompt.  I love this picture, the trees and windmill behind a busy street full of cars is exactly how it is where I live. I was sitting at one of the last lights before my neighborhood, within walking distance of home.

This afternoon while I took a walk on my lunch break I took a couple of other pictures of streets.  These are different angles of the same street, Linebaugh Ave. As seen from walking on the street, from walking below, and walking directly below.

If I’d had time I would have liked to add some pictures of the streets in my neighborhood.  They are all curved enough to make pulling out a a driveway a challenge and most of them have either water on one side, trees on one side, or both.  The ones that have both I avoid like the plague when I run outside at night.  Which I haven’t done in way too long….

In addition to #NaBloPoMo I also signed up for Photography 101 this month.  All or nothing, right?  The photo theme of the day is ‘home’.  That’s a word that means different things to different people and which has meant very different things to me at different times.

I’ve lived in Arizona most of my life, and a few years in California as well.  I felt at home in those places, or I thought I did. I was perfectly fine with either one of them really.

But then I moved to Florida and I found that home isn’t just where the heart is as so many people say. Home is the place that when you get there you find you don’t want to leave.  I’ve only been here 8 years but after the first year I was already hooked.  Visiting other places is fun and I’d love to go back and visit the desert and the mountains, but Florida is home to me.