Life in the barn was very good…
It’s dark, it’s damp- there is lots of moss.
Looking down through the slats on one of the walk bridges. Moss underneath and growing between the slats. I like the leaf imprint also.
Rain Forests are dark places. There is the thick canopy overhead, cloudy skies and rain falling on your camera. I had to set the ISO and the F-stop. Sounds like I know what I’m doing, doesn’t it? Ha! I laugh.
The ISO has to do with the speed of the “film” but because I have a digital SLR there is no film. But from what I understand (and with limited brain power, I could be wrong) the lower the number the more light it needs but it has better color saturation. ISO 200 would have better color but needs a brighter day. The higher the setting the more grainy the photo can be too. I experimented with different ISOs and settled on about 400 or 800 depending on where I was in the woods Rain Forest.
The F stop determines how wide the shutter opens (called aperture) which determines how much light hits the “film”. The wider it opens the shorter the depth of focus. If I have it set to 8 the aperture doesn’t open as wide, letting in less light, but it will provide a wider focus area. If someone was standing in front of an impressive sight, I would want to have a deeper focus to include not only the person but the background so I would set it at about 8. If the person was standing in front of something not so impressive or I wanted the person to be the main focus of the photo, I would set it at a lower number- say 5.6. If you go too low then the person’s nose might be in focus but the rest would be blurry.
In this situation, trying to take photos in the dark, when I didn’t want to use a flash- I wanted the aperture to open wide to let in as much light as possible. It seems to have worked for the forest shots but the people shots were a bit off. Maybe one person in focus and the others a tad blurry. Here’s an example:
(Somebody has complained about the amount of time my Blog takes to load. I certainly wouldn’t want to inconvenience my vast (snort) readership or hog up more than my share of Internet ethereal space. So these shots are in thumbnail because I haven’t figured out how to put part of it on another page. Click on the thumbnail to get a larger photo.)
TG is mainly in focus but her moving boots are very blurry. Grandpa and KJ are slightly fuzzy. This was at ISO 400 and F-stop 5.6. I’m not sure what would have been better because if I went with a smaller aperture then there may not have been enough light and the shutter would stay open longer also making a blurry shot.
I’ll probably be posting more photos in the next few days. I’ve been a tad bit grumpy lately ( yes, just a Tad, you have issue with that?!?!?!) The Col. is leading worship at revival services in the evenings so he isn’t around- which may be for the best. When he is gone and the kids are in bed, I don’t have to share the chocolate.
The kids and I took a quick trip to visit The Grandparents this week. They live in the Rain Forest. Not really, but it sure seems that way. At the house, Dad has recorded monthly rain falls equal to what we get here in a YEAR! And it doesn’t just come down and then be over with- it drips, dribbles and mists all the time. This makes driving very busy and something like this:
Look at rain drops on the windshield.
Decide there isn’t enough speed to blow the drops off and turn wipers on intermittent.
Intermittent is too fast. Turn off wipers.
Look at rain drops.
Turn wipers on intermittent.
Turn wipers on first regular setting.
Turn wipers off.
Put on sunglasses.
Turn wipers on intermittent.
Take off sunglasses.
Turn off wipers.
Look at rain drops.
Sigh loudly. Do it all again.
“I don’t have anything to wear!”
This is getting to be familiar lament, and not in a good way.
The other pants are in the wash- don’t you have any thing else?
She was wearing a dress but I had told her she could not wear tights outside again because they get dirty and holey.
How about leggings under your dress?
Oh horrors! Not that!
What about those tan pants on your shelf?
Gack!
I bought her a pair of tan slacks and her Gramma bought her a pair of tan pants- kind of jean like. Has she worn them? Of course not. I doubt she ever will. They are not pink. They have no flash to them like her jeans that are embedded with rhinestones (well, not rhinestones but plastic clear and pink flashy things. Is anyone else looping “Rhinestone Cowboy“? Showing my age again.) She wore the tan pants out in the snow ONCE, calling them snow pants because what else are they good for?
In this case, she put on another skirt (can’t wait until she does her own laundry) and went out bare legged- in 47 degree, windy weather. To her credit, she didn’t complain.
So if you are out shopping and you see a pair of tan pants, or any other tan colored clothing item, and you think maybe she will like them, just keep walking and save your money.
When she is 50 and I am ancient beyond all belief and she comes to visit me in the nursing home wearing TAN pants, I will shuffle about with my walker, pointing my bony finger at her, and saying loudly:
“SEE HER!?!?!? She is wearing TAN! TAN I tell you! When she was FIVE she refused to wear TAN! TAN was not PINK! Look at HER!”
She’ll be embarrassed at the fuss and annoyed at me and I will be laughing, laughing I tell you!
TG has progressed in her prayer life. She used to pray at meals like this:
“Jesus. Amen.”
As one person we know said, it includes many theological aspects and really is a complete prayer. But, we felt there needed to be some branching out in that area. She has now progressed to:
“Jesus, thank you for food on table in front of us, um, um, actually bless it. Help Mama’s hands feel better. Amen.”
I think, when she was referring to my hands that she meant some thing along the lines of “bless Mama’s hands” but she started saying that about the time a while back when I wasn’t feeling well. It sorta got mixed up.
This morning she progressed to:
“Jesus, thank you for food on table in front of us. Keep Papa on road as he go to hoffice. Amen.”
The kids seem to have missed the really bad part of this cold. They had runny noses for a bit before I got sick but not a cough like what The Col. and I have experienced. I don’t know if we had the same virus or not- it always amazes me how a cold will effect each of us differently. TG had been doing fine until Thursday night when she started coughing. It is not a croupy cough but a chesty cough- sounds like it’s in the chest. It seems different than our cough because there were no other symptoms before the cough started. She woke herself up with coughing fits during the night but in the morning seemed fine again. Friends came over and she only coughed a few times. She seemed as full of energy as ever. Although, by the end of the day, with no nap, she was a mess and was herded off to bed early. More coughing in the night and a bit of a runny nose on Saturday. As I listened to her cough during the night, I determined that she should stay home from Church the next day.
I thought I should be the one to stay with her as The Col. plays guitar during church and I just pew sit. I started to make plans of what I could do at home with only one child. Until I felt a bit guilty that I wasn’t planning on spending the time with my Baby and determined that we would spend some time cuddling up on the couch.
But the best laid plans of me and mice (yick) are often put asunder. The Col. decided that he needed to stay home and get extra rest. Sigh. He was still dragging from the cold he caught two weeks ago- still blowing and coughing. It’s the cold that just will not leave.
I rounded up the other two kids and informed TG that she was going to stay home to take care of Papa.
She did a real good job of taking care of him too. She let him watch Barney instead of James Bond. He was thrilled beyond measure.
After every explosion of activity there is the Day After.
They are not usually very pretty.
This one was no exception.
Everyone was tired.
People were cranky.
And it was all hanging out there.
No one wanted to do school. Oh the wailing and gnashing of teeth.
The Girls were acting like….oh, horror… girls! Oh, the whining, shrieking, tattling- it was all so, so, so girl like.
I, of course, the parent, the teacher, the adult, was the picture of calm, tranquility, peace. I was enthusiastic, energetic, full of vim and vigor. I was wise, patient and kind.
I am lying through my teeth.
The Girls took naps, including me. The Boy is much too old for that though, but he knew enough to leave me alone so that I could get one.
For some reason, the Day After stretched into the Week After and we are still out of kilter. Right now, I am just hoping for a better next week.
Where has the last week gone? Here I was doing fairly well about posting things and then a whole week plus passes. I will just say that for a person who is easily overwhelmed by life in general, last week was a tidal wave, tornado and hurricane all at once.
Our little church decided to put on an Easter production titled The Living Last Supper- you know, like Di Vinci’s painting. (OK- for you technically accurate people out there- it’s not a painting but a mural or fresco or some artsy term or other. Accurate enough for you? Oooh, she sounds cranky!) The production would take 12 disciples, 1 Jesus, 1 narrator. 14 men would be quite a stretch for us but, well, we’d beg help from friends and family. Then there was talk of a choir. Choir? The women that could sing were roped in (that would not include me, I might add). Then talk of townspeople… Roman soldiers… angels!!! Alright, only ONE angel but still, we are talking more and more people here. We were beginning to wonder who would actually be left to watch the thing- the whole church was in the cast and most of the Pastor’s family and friends too!
The Col. carried a heavy load as he was the narrator and he sang a solo- Watch the Lamb by Ray Boltz. It’s an old song but tells a wonderful story. Plus he was one of the three men in the choir. Then disaster struck.
His wife got a cold. And shared. Ain’t she sweat?
So we sent up prayers.
And continued on with our busy week. Tuesday was a choir practice, Wednesday was a potluck and a meeting at Church, Thursday was a play practice and Friday was the dress rehearsal. The Col. stayed home from work and slept on Wednesday and was home until noon on Thursday. Plus our regular activities. Plus fighting a cold on my part also.
After two run throughs at the dress rehearsal, The Col. could hardly speak. But we took it easy on Saturday and things looked good for Sunday except I didn’t have any eggs for the kids to hunt on Sunday at our friends house. I was feeling drained of all energy so I shamelessly called a friend, the much respected Mrs. L, and begged her to pick up some plastic eggs at the store for me. Luckily, she was at the store at the time and so she saved my goose, see why she is the “much respected Mrs. L” and not just by the kids.
Even with 44 people in the cast (including the choir) we had 81 people show up Sunday morning! Praise God! And it all went very well. The Col.’s voice held out and he sounded good. We did the play twice and it went well both times. The Lord took our feeble efforts and made them into something Glorious.
