The end of last week nearly turned into a showstopper for the picture-taking thing, because who wants to take pictures when everyone is sick and it is cold and gross and…

I’ve soldiered on, though, and while I didn’t take a picture of my own on the 20th, the arrival of my new niece meant that I did have a nice picture to add to my collection for that day. I would have taken a picture of the birthday boy (Mark is declaring a do-over on his birthday, I think you can do that when you throw up a million times the night before…), but that didn’t seem quite right.

There’s not a lot of technically great pictures here, but there are some good stories, and while part of the point of this is to learn to use my camera, I’m quite happy with the stories. It’s really kind of cool to look at nearly a month’s worth of pictures in one place. I want to have a hard copy of these memories, too, but I still can’t decide what I want that to look like. I should probably decide sooner, rather than later, so that I can keep up with whatever it is that I choose.

I suspect I’m over-thinking it…which I know is hard to believe…

January 15 -- Will, up close

Since installing Adobe Lightroom, I've been paging back through old pictures, looking at baby pictures mostly…When the boys were tiny, unless the camera could catch some tell-tale sign, like the birthmark on Will's eyelid, it's not always easy to tell which is which. As they've gotten older, their faces have started to show different details. Day 22

January 16 -- Basement Basketball

After playing an entire game at school, I might have thought they'd be kind of tired, but after homework was done, they headed to the basement to play. I hope they remember how much fun they have together. It's pretty awesome having a built-in buddy. It's kind of funny, as I look at this, with today's theme of "remember" in mind -- I see lots of things to remember. Those cardboard bricks that we've had for AGES...The jammies Joe is wearing (I bought those in 2007 for all of the boy cousins -- I had forgotten how big they must have been at the time if they still fit him now...). That stupid orange chair that is uglier than sin, but is super comfortable and just won't wear out, the blue exercise ball behind the chair, we bought it when I was pregnant, never used it for much, but I just saw a picture from when the boys were infants of Mark balancing one of them on it. I could keep going... Day 23

January 17 -- Folded

We keep our house cool, so if you come visit me and don't wear enough layers, you might need to borrow one of these. It's been awhile since I've counted, but it's pretty obvious: we are not at a loss for quilts of all shapes, sizes and colors. Day 24 This is a little bit of a fake. I "took" a photo on the 17th, but it was too dark, and not one of my 73 tries was remotely decent. I'm considering this legitimate, though, to take it on the 18th, since I tried on the 17th...

January 18 -- Joe and Katie

This totally looks like a sweet moment captured, (and it is…), but here's the reality: shortly before I started taking pictures, Joe said to me "Katie's farts reek" Day 25

January 19

A rare smile for the camera. I may be biased, but oh, is he cute or what??? Plus, he was doing the dishes... The lighting wasn't very good, and I had to crop out his goofy brother... Day 26

January 20 -- Matt and his girls

I just adore this picture that my sister took of her husband and his girlies. Aren't they sweet? Welcome to the world, Chloe! January 20th is also my husband's birthday, but he was sicker than sick, so we are declaring a do-over on his birthday. I would much rather remember this particular story for the 20th, even if I didn't take the picture... day 27

January 21 -- Waiting for the pizza

The boys participated in an honor band festival. We hit Pizza Hut before heading home. Luckily, the food was good, but sometimes, Pizza Hut's are so incredibly slow. I think the boys had a good time, though they won't admit to enjoying the experience. day 28

I think I might be more excited than the boys.

It’s just crazy that we waited until NOW to get snow. Someone came in to my office today and said “On the bright side, spring IS coming.”

But, heck, winter only just got here. I’m worried it’s going to stick around as long as usual. And as longtime blog readers recall, Suzanne is not a big fan of winter. Or snow. Or being cold. Why do I live in Iowa?

I had something of an epiphany last night about taking pictures.

It was late and dark and I was extremely tired. I put the camera on a tripod, and sat in a chair just looking around, for anything, any possible subject for a decent picture, in the low light that was available to me.

And as I sat there, just looking, and thinking, I noticed the RC cars sitting on the table. Please ignore the rest of the crap. Somebody really ought to pick up this joint.

The cars made me think of a photo I had seen of matchbox cars strewn on a table. It was a great photo, and it made me the nostalgic for the days of toys like that. I snapped out of it, though, because I like having big kids. They can be smelly and loud and obnoxious, but they are funny and independent and life is physically so much easier.

I started to see what I could do with capturing those RC cars, but it was just not happening.

At the high school basketball games, when the visiting team has the ball and they are just passing it around, without taking shots, the student spectators start to chant:

BOR-ING BOR-ING BOR-ING BOR-ING

That’s how I was feeling about these pictures. I won’t even bore you with everything I tried. Because they were:

BOR-ING BOR-ING BOR-ING BOR-ING

And then I sat the cars and the camera on the floor and tried for closeups of one of them.

And then Will sat down at his laptop on the couch.

And then I had a picture that tells a story:

I know I won’t always hit the mark, but now I will be looking for stories to tell, rather than just looking to take a picture.

Today was the last day of the 1st semester. 7th grade is HALF over. HALF. Crazy.

The basketball season only holds 5 more games, which is hard to believe, too. Tonight’s game was a loss, but it was a “good” loss. The first time they played this team, they lost by, like, 20. Tonight, the final score was (I think…) 36-29. And they completely shut the other team down in the 4th quarter. They used a different defense, it and worked like crazy. They have made a ton of progress this year, and are really working as a team, which is exciting.

Today’s picture is a shot of the teams’ feet while they were over talking to the coaches during a timeout.

I saw this kind of shot from another photographer on Flickr. I really like the reflection in the shiny floor.

Will and Joe are the two black pairs on the right, Mark is the pair of khaki’s on the right.

With the end of the semester comes the start of a new semester — we have been processing schedule changes like crazy, and at one point, I called the guidance counselor and she said “Are you sane?”

Not in the least.

Students have through Wednesday to make changes, but hopefully we are almost at the end of that tunnel. Then, I get hit by the Report Card Train.