Won't be here next week....

Well, on Tuesday, I am making my journey to Review Santa Fe.  Yep, that time has come which I am hugely excited about, the time for me to take a leap of faith to chance with regards to me! So this self portrait is very appropriate right now as I feel like a lot of hopefuls must do when they take a chance on themselves and thankfully I have a great husband and son backing me all the way doing this! So it is rather appropriate therefore with one of this weeks Scavenger Hunt prompts being Self Portrait that I get to show you this photograph, and this self portrait insight seems to be getting a whole lot deeper as you will see if you read on!

The other prompts this week are Classic Still Life, On the Floor, Lines and Fresh.

So lets start with fresh, shall we? Fresh delicate wild flowers growing wild. I suppose I feel a bit like these wild flowers just now too, which I don't always feel like but going to this Review, I kinda do right now - hope they see wild flowers as being fresh, interesting and beautiful and not like troublesome weeds (ha, ha, ha)

Next prompt, lines.... well the lines of my curtailed artistic pursuits have been erased and I have a chance to maybe rewrite them and not think of them as some distant memory of something that could have happened had I pursued this when I left school! The lines of this have decided to go full circle and come back to make me go make me take a journey down a path which I chose not to follow over 20 years ago. Chance has set me on a course to revisit this and I can't believe I am being so personal in sharing this with you all!

As I said at the beginning of this year in my musing over resolutions, I am going on a journey to destination unknown and I am letting the creative side of me free to be critiqued by the people who I never in a million years thought would be doing this, just because it was not an opportunity that I thought would have been presented, so I feel so incredibly lucky to be given this chance.....

.... and I love the fact that life is full of chance and surprises, and surprises are everywhere.....

..... like seeing interesting faces in rocks on the ground (I know the prompt was on the floor but ground/floor...) and challenging yourself to have a go at something else and not just accepting a still life, classic or otherwise!

So, as I said at the beginning of this post, I am off to Santa Fe on Tuesday and won't be back until the following Tuesday. I am so looking forward to meeting my reviewers who have been scheduled in, and I think they are incredible so I know I will come away with some very valuable advice in addition to meeting people who I might otherwise never have so who knows what will happen, and who would have thought this would have transpired from starting up this little ol' blog?! I genuinely am so excited and I have no ego or expectations other than knowing that I have been given a surprising and incredible opportunity which I am so happy about!

So if you don't hear from me next week, I am sure you will understand and thank you all for your support and encouragement and listening of my muse and yap about somethings and nothings which I love to do. I am very grateful for you all being there and not making me feel like I am just talking to myself like some nutter, truly. I hope you all have a great week and thanks for popping over.

Spectacles of wonder and Marvin and Carly turn 2....

Like a lot of places, we had some really strong winds here this past week which has resulted in some big old trees being completely uprooted.  Here are however a few pictures that I took that to me were sad, interesting, beautiful and made me stop and contemplate.

Spectacles of beauty and wonder in so many ways don't you think?

Talking about spectacles of beauty, Marvin & Carly turn 2 today and I made them cakes! Spectacles of doggy wonder indeed (ha, ha).  They are made from dog food and dog chocolate drops which they will get later today!

 

I think they are going to like them!

Sometimes apples grow on trees!

Anders and I are not known to have green fingers, and I planted and chose all the plants in the garden because I thought they would look pretty there, if indeed they survived, which amazingly most of them did!  

One of these plants was an apple tree which we planted by way of providing a natural separation from one part of the garden to the other and trained it in an espalier style. Since it was planted some 5 years ago, we have had nothing, but this year to our surprise it produced pretty pink flowers......

.... probably with the help of the old tea leaves we have been putting into the soil underneath it the last few months and would you believe, today, I see the start of some apples growing, potentially "buckets of apples"! 

Sometimes apples do grow on trees!

There will be no miracles here!

Or will there?  

Well divine inspiration or what! The challenge over at ACoLab was front page of the news for 5th June, when I will be in Santa Fe, or should be.... therefore, if I am to participate in this prompt challenge I needed to get it done well before then. Here is therefore my post in advance as by the 5th of June we will know if I have managed to fly to the Review or not!

As of yesterday and today, the front of the newspapers in the UK are torn between articles of the Volcanic Ash stopping flights taking off and landing and President Obama who is over here visiting and what that means for relations.  So the big question for me personally right now is will the volcano decide to stop erupting to allow flight space normality over the UK and therefore allow my flight take off next week as is scheduled which will take me to the US on the first leg of the trip to Santa Fe? At the moment they are saying "expect more flight delays from Friday onwards which will cause problems over the bank holiday weekend" as the volcano continues to spew ash into the atmosphere, so will my flight leave on time?

Yep, you're right, too soon to say!

A walk and a run both are fun!

Walking in the fresh air in beautiful woodlands and playing about with different lenses whilst the dogs ran about is a little of what I got up to this weekend as I think about having my photography reviewed in Santa Fe which is next week and how this is making me feel!  If you are interested, you can see all of the people going too to have their portfolios reviewed over there under Review Santa Fe 2011 which I am now starting to look through and I am blown away by their talent, so how did I get there too (my mind just is humbled and shocked by it all).  Here are some of the views I saw on the walk, can you see what feelings are going through my head as I take you with me on this walk.....

Can you see how I am feeling?

Wonder if JB and JB are still in love?

I did say a walk and a run in my title though didn't I?  Well....

...... Dexter's cub pack were competing to keep title to the sports trophy, which they retained for the 5th consecutive year - yey for them! In the last event which was the 400 meter sprint, Dexter came 2nd and was way ahead of all the others which shocked all of the adults who were watching - he literally just shot out, and didn't stop until the end which he couldn't stop smiling about when we went home!

So what makes you feel happy?

Busy doing something close to nothing but different than the day before!

Sometimes that is just how a weekend seems to pass, but we had a lot of fun buzzing about doing nothing! Yeh, as if we do nothing!!!

Raspberry Beret - Prince by abelflexes