Second month of the year . . . and we continue witnessing the growing love between these two precious young'uns in our lives. Even tho this is a little fuzzy (Jack moved his chin) the emotion and electricity between these two is pefectly pictured right here. They are AMAZING!
Melanie told me Miss Pepper should be renamed . . . Dr. Pepper . . . that way I can have a Dr. Pepper every day and we all know she is definitely an effervesant addition to our family. She probably does more good for Tony's blood pressure than his meds.
This is the brace made for Mom to stabilize her ankle and help with her inability to stand flatfooted. We are having adjustments made and this brace is giving Mom new confidence that she will be more mobile in the future.
During February Mom felt energetic enough to get a perm. Her beautician works out of her house and off we went. Here is the beautiful result. It will be much easier for her to take care of.
Mom also felt like putting a puzzle together. She had a little help but got some dexterity exercise in the process and the end result is a very fitting picture.
After learning more about my iPhone capabilities and learning how to use my 10 year old Pentax point and shoot, I decided to purchase a Sony DSC-H400. It has 63x telescopic capabilities and 20.1 Mega Pixels. So now I am getting used to the operating features and looking forward to many more beautiful photographs.
One of the photographers in my class has a camera similar to mine and that is how I became interested in that particular one. Hers took such great pictures, was light weight, and very user friendly.
After checking prices online, I checked at Sam's and found it had been marked down. I thought about it for a few days, then revisited Sam's and asked if it could be returned if I did not like it. The answer was, yes, you can try it out for 90 days . . . WOW! I bought it.
This is one of my homework photos.
Marsha and I have lunch after class at either Jimmy Changas or Gringos. We love discussing the photos the students submit and talk about our goals for this week's assignment. We had a guest speaker on the 21st. Roselyn Pierce, artist and author, told us of her 3-year photographic journey from hobby to selling her photographs and publishing books filled with her own pictures. Great inspiration. One book she wrote and illustrated is about a goose family near her home. It is available on Amazon.
Goose-Z Gets Second Chance, by Roselyn Pierce Shirley
February was a great 'leap' month. I made almost 20 sunset/sunrise FB posts. The sky here on Austin Bayou is incredible. The picture below is a sunrise where the sky looked as if it were the ocean, teaming with life. As I look at my 'old' pictures I want to fix them . . . straighten the horizon, crop out irrelevant stuff . . . this is a picture I took with my Sony using the panoramic feature.
We are seeing a few wild flowers blooming in our field and along the side of the road. I even used one of the very small white flower clusters for my photo class. Our assignment was to zoom in then use post processing to tweak it. Here are my pictures . . . edited with PicMonkey.
The assignments (which are optional) push me out of my comfort zone and require some thinking outside 'my' box. We were asked to photograph people at work so I took pictures (after asking) at PetsMart, my physicians office, and at the pharmacy I get my prescriptions filled. Here are the results . . .
We found out that summer registration for photography classes begins May 2. Marsh and I can hardly wait to get registered. Trudy is going to teach the class and we are glad.
One of the sets of pictures I took that convinced me to stick with this camera was a night that I took photos of the moon . . .
Dean finished our new deck and we have been enjoying it when the 'winter' days allow. I have grilled hamburgers and steaks on the grill and look forward to using it a lot more in the future. Jackie gave Tony some of her many potted plants for helping them move into their new home. They look great on the deck but require lots of watering because of our windy weather out of the south.
We lost one of the most lovely lady's on God's Earth . . . Billie Marrs. She battled with congestive heart failure and other health challenges. She is missed a LOT already. This picture was taken in Kerrville at our Inn of the Hills at our Fall Convention (Feast of Tabernacles) with Hilda Redd.
At her memorial my take-away was that she was not only a giant in the Christian Women's department, but she had the distinct ability to make you feel like the most important friend she had, but you knew everyone in her life fit into that category and you were not slighted in the least.
Another longtime friend passed away before Mrs. Marrs. She had been battling cancer. Her mother, who had been in a nursing home for a while, also passed away within a week of her daughter's death.
The month ended quietly with more sunrises and sunsets . . . and more exploration with my Sony camera.
I close with a picture of the beautiful flowers Dad brought Mom . . .