I’d visited the Cup N’ Cork earlier with a friend of mine and enjoyed the ambiance, I thought Miss 18 would enjoy it too. I also thought it’d be a nice “thank you” for letting me photograph her…

We had so much fun playing around with different poses and camera angles. Also she’s such a good sport! What you can’t tell from the pictures is that she was being attacked by bugs the size of small birds.

Do you have a favorite place to shoot?

I’m linking up with Deb of deb duty photography for This or That Thursday.

Please Join Me on Saturday for Shoe Style Saturday!

Shoe Style Saturday is just fun way to share pictures of your shoes. If you plan to link up, leave a comment below and let me know so I can check it out.

So how was your weekend? Mine was nice. I spent Saturday at Six Flags with Miss 15 for her choir concert. They owned it! All three of their choirs earned plaques and Miss 15′s choir did something no other choir from her school has ever done ~ they earned perfect scores across the board from all three judges! You should have heard the squealing on the bus! I think they hit a note that only dogs could hear.

I didn’t take any pictures of what I wore that day but suffice it to say that I was comfortable. I did, however, take pictures on two other days…

What I Wore Wednesday

Wednesday was errand day for me. It was also incredibly hot, so I stepped out of my norm and wore a dress {a handkerchief print dress, at that} and a tank top. I almost never go sleeveless but the idea of anything touch me was just too unbearable. I did learn something though, wearing a dress really is just as easy and comfy as throwing on a pair of jeans.

What I Wore Thursday

I know you’re thinking What? This isn’t what you wore on your trip to Six Flags? Nope. I honestly hadn’t planned to leave the house on Thursday and at the very last minute I had to run out, this was what I had on to kick around the house so… I do like the tee though. Add a coffee cup on it somewhere and you have me to a Tee. Get it? Hahaha

So what did you wear this week?

I’m linking up with:

• The Pleated Poppy ~ What I Wore Wednesday
• Rae Gun Ramblings ~ What We Made and What We Wore Wednesday

Please check them out for more fashion inspiration.

The hubs likes to say that I carry my own special brand of crazy in a bucket. And that crazy includes a whole lot of skepticism. So when I received an email from the Fairy Hobmother stating that he would like to give me a $50 Amazon Gift Voucher because I “deserved something special” in my inbox, my spidey senses immediately started tingling. Being the good librarian that I am, I used my impeccable research skills to find out about this “Fairy Hobmother” and try to figure out the catch…

It seems the Fairy Hobmother dispenses gifts to bloggers in exchange for them mentioning him and linking to his business, Appliances Online. So, basically, this is a paid link exchange. I’m not really sure how well this pans out for him but it is genius marketing. Or, at the very least, it’s better than those random email that I sometimes receive asking to do a link exchange for nothing.

Anyway, the Fairy Hobmother will continue to sprinkle fairy dust across Bloggy Land as long as bloggers continue to work with him. If you’d like to be considered for a visit, all you have to do is leave your wish below in the comments section. If you wish, you can also follow the Fairy Hobmother on Twitter.

Disclosure: I received a $50 Amazon Gift Voucher in exchange for this post.

freedom to wander about…

enjoy coffee with friends…

hang with the hubs on his days off…

sit in the grass and soak up the sun…

Now that time will be interrupted by “Mom, I’m bored!” or “Mom, I’m hungry!”

So I’ll spend my last week of freedom just being in the moment and trying not to think about them.

How will you spend your last week of freedom?

One of my mother’s favorite sayings is “Give me my flowers while I’m still living.” Meaning, don’t celebrate me and talk about how much you love me after I’m gone, tell me now while I can appreciate it.  I used to think that was such a hard thing to say until my father passed away a few years ago and I wrote a post about how much I loved him and would miss him.  Seriously, it’s so much easier to tell people you love them while they’re still with you and it’s better for the soul.  So, Mom, here are your flowers…

My sisters and I were raised in church.  In fact, we used to joke that when we were released from the hospital our first stop was the church.  Which really isn’t that far from the truth since we had to pass by the church to get to our apartment.  Anyway, suffice it to say, we were in church a lot.  During my early years, I thought everyone was in church 5 to 6 days out of the week, it wasn’t until my teen years that I realized we were, um, different.  That was also when I began to resent all the time spent sitting on those hard pews.

I wanted to be like the other kids in school ~ go to dances, attend parties, hang out at the clubs, listen to Michael Jackson or Prince, anything but gospel, but Mom wouldn’t let us.  Nope, we had to have ourselves dressed and ready for that 2 hour drive to church every Sunday morning and a couple of times during the week.  Yes, our church was 2 hours away from our house.  Do you know how hard it was to do homework in a moving vehicle?

As I grew older, I strayed from the path that she had set me on, I even tested pushed jumped way over the boundaries when I lived at home.  How she survived me, I’ll never know! But now that I’m older and have children of my own, I understand what she was doing and I truly appreciate it.

Mom, if you’re reading this, and I know you are because all moms read their childrens’ blogs don’t they, I want to thank you for the nights you spent listening to me as I recited the books of the Bible for Sunday school.  Had to earn that penny candy from Elder Osbourn.  I want to thank you for the hours that you spent praying that I would survive whatever craziness I had gotten myself into that day.  Remember the celebratory phone call on my 21st birthday because everyone was soooo happy/surprised that I made it?  But, most of all, I just want to thank you for helping me to learn the meaning of God’s love.

Apparently, I’m not the only one who has wanted to share my photographic finds because Pinterest and Flickr worked together to enable pinners to pin photographs and retain the original attribution to the photographer.

To pin from Flickr, just do the following:

1. Go to Flickr and find a pretty picture. I’m going to use one of my own for demonstration purposes. Besides, I am my biggest fan…

If you don’t have the “Pin It” button saved to your toolbar, just go here to download it.

2. When you get to this screen, select “Pin This”

This is your last chance to back out.

3. Select your board

Add some descriptive terms to your pin. For example, I let everyone know that I edited my photograph using textures from The Coffee Shop Blog.

4. Your shiny new pin

See the little Flickr icon? Not only does it let everyone know that your pin came from Flickr, it also links to the original photograph on Flickr.

Other pinning tips for photographers and bloggers:

• Watermark your photographs. Even though the pin links to your original photograph, watermarking is a nice way to get your information out there. For watermarking how~tos, go here.
• Drive traffic to your blog through Pinterest. Don’t simply self~promote, encourage others, create interesting boards and people will want to find out more about you. For more tips, go here.

Do you use Pinterest? Are you a photographer on Flickr? How do you feel about people being able to pin your photos?

This week, my obsession seemed to be coffee beans…

There’s something about the smoothness of the beans…

The richness of the browns…

Yep, I love all the things about coffee…

Collage Layout Courtesy of Ginger Pixel

But, mostly, I love the taste…

What are you obsessed with this week?

I’m linking up with Deb of deb duty photography for This or That Thursday.

Please Join Me on Saturday for Shoe Style Saturday!

Shoe Style Saturday is just fun way to share pictures of your shoes. If you plan to link up, leave a comment below and let me know so I can check it out.

So, let’s see what’s changed since last week? Hmmm… I cut my hair. I’ve been transitioning from relaxed {chemically straightened} hair to my naturally curly hair for a year and last week I had enough and cut off the last bit of relaxed hair. I feel such a since of relief. Who knew hair could be so burdensome? I was sad to lose the length but happy to be free of the dual textured hair. You can see pictures of my hair over the past year by clicking here.

I also picked up my new glasses. Really, blind people should not be allowed to pick out their own frames. It’s so difficult with those fake lenses in them and the mirror is always so far back that it’s hard to get right up on it to see. OK, maybe it’s just me but I really do have a hard time. I think I did pretty good this time but still…

As for what I wore this week, I was pretty basic all week and stuck with neutrals… Not good.

What I Wore Thursday

I can’t for the life of me remember what I did on Thursday.

What I Wore Sunday

I almost never wear belts as accessories, so this was way out of the norm for me. As of matter fact, I put it on and took it off at least half a dozen times before we left for church. It also took me forever to get my hair straight enough to pull  back, so I know I won’t be doing that very often.

I realized after looking at a couple of pictures that I really need to wear color. So that’s my goal for this week coming: WEAR COLOR! I also need to wear more accessories… Baby steps.

Hopefully having to post pictures will keep me accountable.

What fashion goal are you setting for yourself this week?

I’m linking up with:

• The Pleated Poppy ~ What I Wore Wednesday
• Rae Gun Ramblings ~ What We Made and What We Wore Wednesday

Please check them out for more fashion inspiration.

Hope you’re all having a good Tuesday. I’m doing well, just kicking back and relaxing… I have some errands to run but I totally don’t feel like leaving the house. Have you ever had a day like that? You know, you have stuff to do but you just don’t feel like doing it… So, instead, I’m sitting here editing pictures and trying to build up the oomph to leave the house.

Today marked the beginning of the second week of the “Knowing God by Name” bible study and I have to say, this has truly been an awe inspiring study. In the first week, we learned the names of God that indicate His deity:

• YAHWEH ~ LORD {Jehovah, Self~Existent One}
• ELOHIM ~ GOD {Mighty, Strong, Prominent One}
• ADONAI ~ LORD {Master}
• RISHON VA~ACHARON ~ THE FIRST AND THE LAST
• ADONAI YAHWEH ~ SOVEREIGN LORD

Each of these names proclaim that God is the LORD of lords and God of gods, there is no one above Him, He can do anything, He is the beginning and the end…

I’ve always known that God is above all but reading it in His word {and in Hebrew} has been such a learning experience. God established that He is the one who is in control and has the ultimate authority because everything bows to His will {Isaiah 46:9~11}. What a great and powerful God we serve!

A couple of times a week, I plan to share what I’ve learned from my discussions with the ladies from the Women’s Bible Café and my readings from the book  Knowing God by Name: A Personal Encounter by Mary Kassian. For more information on the study, you can check out the Women’s Bible Cafe on Facebook by clicking here.