Update ~ Last Week

It is late on Sunday night as I write this, moments before midnight. I am tired. A creative tired from the past seven days of work. In the past forty-eight hours Elizabeth & I had two days of non-stop shooting. As I type these words it still feels like I have a camera pressed up against my left eye and the feel of the indent in my right hand from holding on to the camera for an extended period. The work was good; the light over the past 2 days was good. At times too bright and hazy, but all light is good.

Monday thru Friday of last week I wrote...a lot. I stepped away from my desk and wrote. I find it hard to sit at my desk and write. For me my desk is for editing photos, updating this blog and responding to e-mails. Off to write, to create (either with a pen or camera) I need to leave the desk. I sat in the library and wrote, I sat in coffee house and wrote, even ventured to my back porch and wrote. I wrote.

Filling up a journal is a good feeling. An addictive feeling and if you have ever filled up a journal there is a good chance that you will continue to fill up journals. Seeing a small stack of moleskin journals accumulating on a bookshelf is good (also scary, hoping that nobody but you ever reads them).

I walked last week. I walked as much as I could. The weather was nice so I did my best to stay out of my car as much as possible. On Thursday I had a networking meeting on the South Side of Pittsburgh at nine. Not wanting to use my car nor sit in traffic I decided to get up early and walk to the “T” (PGH subway/train hybrid). Forty minutes to get to the station, 15 minutes on the “T” and then another twenty minute walk to the appointment. The second half of the walk was a great experience. I walked down a street that I have driven on many, many times over the past twenty years.

Thursday I saw the street for the very first time.

I am going to finish my beer and go to bed. Will organize my writing projects in the days to come.

P.S. Wednesday I will be taking photos for Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy – they hold a “walks in the woods” every Wednesday evening (6:30) between the months of June through September. Bring your camera & I will do my best to help answer any of your questions (mini Photo-Walk).

Info about “Walks in the Woods” can be found here :
http://www.pittsburghparks.org/walks-in-the-woods

Colleen Dustin Photography | Sugar & Spice + Birthday

Are you ready for some super cuteness??? Check out these adorable books Colleen of Colleen Dustin Photography made . . . the first is a Maternity through 1st Year Book made with our Sugar & Spice templates – sooooo cute! The second is a First Year Book created from our Birthday Party template, how clever!



And now for the First Year Book . . .

GoodBye For Now Tara, God Protect You

Tara Raising The Flag For Memorial Day

Graduation Day Is Finally Here

Today with everything else emotional going on around our house in Woodstock, IL ... we are also so delighted and so proud that our youngest daughter Leah graduated from Woodstock High School. This is the last of our five children to graduate high school. What a relief! For the last 17 years we have had a Woodstock High School student living in our home and quite frankly ... my wife and I feel a bit like we have graduated too! Thank God I survived!
Leah is a fighter and I am sure like you, we are proud of all of our children. Each one is very unique. Leah, however, is very special to us for several reasons. Life has been an everyday battle for her since the summer prior to the eighth grade. Leah was diagnosed with severe Narcolepsy with all of the major symptoms and complications.
Regular everyday life has been struggle for her in so many ways. Some side effects can be devastating. God has been so VERY good to us all. Leah, now 18, has become a young woman just beginning to explore career possibilities. Severe narcolepsy usually sidelines a person from interaction with the outside world. Leah earned a great GPA will she fought to stay active in Varsity Softball which is a very rare accomplishment for those with Narcolepsy.
She will start her continued education at McHenry County College this fall. We are extremely proud of what she did academically with the odds that were stacked against her. We look forward to watching new doors that God will open for her bright future.
Atta girl Leah!
Love, Mom & Dad

Our Five Children Together

Today is the last day we will be together for a while. Our day was full of laughter, food, and fun. It was not without a few somber moments but it was great to see them all together again. Tara (bottom left) leaves tomorrow for basic training in Oklahoma.

Pictures from the gardens ... at home

This is my first year to grow beans in my gardens, and I didn't do much research before planting that would explain my shock when I saw the image above -- where I'd planted beans!

Well, it turns out that bean seedlings sprout flowers early in the growing process. My surprise was actually more eerie, because two summers ago, in the same spot in my garden where this emerged, I had grown pentunia annuals that gave me the same multicolored blooms as you see above. So I was freaking out at first, thinking that some residual seed from the petunia annuals two years ago had come roaring back.

A quick research online caught me up to speed on this bean-growing phenomenon ... and also warned me to get something for the bean plant to twine ASAP lest it fall over and rot. So ... I'm going to be looking to do that in the days ahead.

A few other surprises in this year's garden. Some seed dropped from last year's bachelor's buttons (blue boy) -- which I also thought were annuals, though I read that they were strong plants that could return -- apparently must have helped itself to several places in my garden last summer after quite a few of the plants were toppled by a severe storm. I'd left the toppled plants alone after the storm, so the tops (blooms) were in direct contact with the soil. There were too many of them to bother to upright with poles or sticks, and not enough room to do so. I'd done the same with my zinias, which also had toppled in the storm (and which are also supposed to be annuals), and lo and behold, I believe I'm seeing seed dropped from those downed plants emerge, too. The growth of the supposed zinias are quite a ways behind the bachelor's buttons at this point, but I'm going to keep my eye on them and catch pictures as soon as something serious materializes. Speaking of dropped seed from an existing plant ... the one sedum I have in my front garden is a result of that very phenomenon from one of the older sedums in my backyard fence-line garden.

You also see here some images of the beautiful, aromatic white blooms from my Henry's Garnet bushes in the backyard fence-line garden (the plant gets its name from how its foliage turns an awesome red in the fall, something I always look forward to). I put some seedling Garnets in my front yard garden last fall; it'll be a while before those get as full as their backyard counterparts and fetch much attention, but the two seedlings did produce some white blooms this spring, which I was thrilled about.

Also pictured are the bountiful buds on my asiatic lilies -- due to burst anytime in the next week and a half; those will be yellow and pink. Last year's show from these beauties was striking and inspiring.

You also see romaine lettuce, broccoli and cumumber plants making their appearance, as well as yellow day lilies, which bloomed only in the past week, and the spots for my two tomato plants -- one cherry, the other a beefeater. In my circular garden in the backyard, my red bud tree -- nurtured from seed dropped from a mature red bud in a neighbor's yard three summers ago -- took off in a big way this spring. Sprinkled around the spring remnant tulips foliage is marigold seed planted a week and half ago. I'm already seeing seedlings sprouting from that.

Above: A broccoli plant.

Above: Cucumber plant foliage.

Above: A hosta on the left, roses on the right. The roses are the only plants on my property that have been with me from the day I moved in 19 years ago. The roses are worth a separate post at a future date.

Above: The front garden that includes (front to back) not sure, one of two Henry's Garnet seedlings, spring tulip foliage, a day lily, a variagated hosta, spring daffodil foliage, another Henry's Garnet seedling and a sedum plant, spawn of one of the backyard sedums.

Above: The fence-line garden in the back, including two Henry's Garnet bushes (with the showy white blooms), a sedum (closest to you), and spring tulip foliage (middle). Not visible are my allium plants (in the middle back row), which are obscured by the foreground Henry's Garnet bush. I also put some marigold seed in the front row here.


Above: The circular garden, featuring a baby red bud and remnant spring tulip foliage. Tiny marigold seedlings are just starting to sprout.


Above: On the left, the genus garden (named for my son's first car, which sat here idled for three years before I developed the grass underneath it into a garden. My son had called his car "the genus"). The genus garden features day lilies, beans, romaine lettuce, my beefeater tomato plant and remnant foliage from spring bulbs. On the right are the asiatic lilies. Behind them are the broccoli, cucumber and a bachelor's buttons plant; in front of them (out of view), a cherry tomato plant.

Above: Closeup of one of the romaine lettuce plants.

Above: Closeup of one of the day lily blooms and a bloom-to-be. These emerged this past week.

Above: A bloom from the return of the Bachelor's Buttons (blue boy).

Above: Closeup of some of the asiatic lily buds.

Above: Blooms from a plant I can't identify; I believe it's from seed I planted last summer, thinking they were supposed to be annuals, but they never emerged. I can't find the package now to identify them. But ... here there are now, a year later?

Above: Closeup of a bloom from the above plant.

Pea Tree Photography | Blog It! Set 3

Norma-ann of Pea Tree Photography sent in these absolutely adorable examples of what she's doing with her Blog It! templates. This little guy has more cute outfits that I do! :) I'm loving Norma-ann's logo, and go check out her blog – it's gorgeous! She says,

I love these "Blog-it" photo frames. They make my client's images look nice and "finished" and "polished" on the web. Plus, they are pretty darn cute, too.

Happy Memorial Day 2010

This Memorial Day has the most incredible significance to our family in Woodstock, IL. My father was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. My mom was born in Toronto, Ontario. I was born in Toronto and my wife was born in Windsor, Ontario. Our two oldest of five children were also born in Canada ... which brings us to our third child.
Her name is Tara. She is by nature a peace lover. I mean she was for the most part a peace maker in a large family. She is the first Baird in our line of the family to be born in the USA and she leaves on Memorial Day for Fort Sill, Oklahoma to train to be a "Six-Eight Whiskey" or 68W Combat Medic in the United States Army.

The primary role of 68W healthcare specialists in the United States Army is providing medical treatment to wounded soldiers. These medics serve as the basic or first tier of the Army medical system accompanying units as small as platoons (approximately 12-40 soldiers) during training and deployments. Medics provide initial emergency medical care, evacuation, and supervision to other soldiers with medical training (such as Combat Lifesavers) as well as provide medical advice to unit chains of command. Uh, ... I have no clue what this really means ... I just copied it out of Wikipedia. That's one of the benefits of having a daughter that is actually trying to do this stuff ... you are allowed to just copy stuff off the Internet like you're Al Gore. Like Bravo-Seven-Alfa-Four-India-One-Niner-Romeo-Delta-Zulu. Sounds cool when you are calling in coordinates to the nearest Panera Bread.

I guess I can say we are a bit nervous at this moment. And, this is a form of anxiety we are experiencing for the first time as parents. Honestly, I think I am a bit worried for her ... but it is being outweighed at this time by a sense of pride for her desire to serve her country in this way. Tara will begin basic training this coming week at Fort Sill in Oklahoma and I believe the plan is to go to Fort Sam Houston in Texas for advanced individual training if everything goes well in Oklahoma.

I am sure for centuries that American parents have worried about their children heading off to military service in very similar ways. For most of my life, I have heard that "freedom isn't free" ... but today it takes on new meaning in the Baird household. We wish you all a very safe and happy Memorial Day! Please take a moment to pray for our troops everywhere.
Tara! You know we love you. You know we have said it hundreds of times since you were a little girl. I will never forget the day you told me that this is what you wanted to do. Seek God in all things. He's where we can't be for you!
Psalm 32:8 - I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you.
We are tremendously proud of you.
Love, Mom & Dad

L-A Feeling

Drops Of California Sun

Mom Are We Moving Again This Weekend?

Totally New Antiques

Candy Whiting Photography | Sugar & Spice

This book is SO COOL! Candy Whiting of Candy Whiting Photography took the Sugar & Spice book and turned it into a super cool family book. I just love the colors she chose and how they compliment the pictures on the page . . . this is awesome Candy!

Northern California Private Beach

Julie Wilson Photography | Thank You Card

Have I told you lately how much I love when someone finds a new use for a current template set that they have?? For some reason, the word "delicious" comes to mind when I look at this . . . it's just yummy! Julie Wilson of Julie Wilson Photography changed up the colors and made a wedding thank you card out of one of her holiday card templates. Isn't it stunning?! Julie said,

Even with the Christmas cards, I can create custom Thank You cards for my brides, and can even change the background to match it their wedding day colors!

Side Note: Don't you love that font Julie chose for their names above??? Well, she was nice enough to share the name of it with us . . . it's called "Saffron Too" and you can download it for free here: http://www.urbanfonts.com/fonts/Saffron_Too.htm

Water Skiing Pueblo

I'd Yak Too If I Ate Grass All Day

Stocked Up For Memorial Day

Soggy Corn Flake Futures

The Kyeyes Have It

Peaches Grow On Stems

Fall Walk In The Park

Time Off

~ See you next week...

Rock Formation Chapel

Fishing Beaver Point

Mutual Of Omaha's Wild Kingdom

Birds of the City

Most City's have a park that serves as a perfect home for all different types of birds.

Cityscapes

The city she is forever growing.

Parental Protection