mums....and moms.....

the best think about having a bunch of store-bought flowers around is that you can take lots of pictures of them while they are pretty and in nice lighting. you don't have to wait for spring to come or for the rain to stop. i've been trying to get hans to buy me flowers to take pictures of ever since i bought these mums for my mom at thanksgiving. so far, there have been no other bought flowers. but i haven't shown you all the neat pictures i took! so here are some more....
technically this photo is probably a little over exposed because of the lack of detail in the highlights (something i learned in my online photo class!) but i like it, so i'm posting it. and it might not win any awards but it just looks so bright and sunny....makes me all warm inside...

this one is probably more technically sound....i like it too...

and this one is a little overexposed again....what can i say? i like it!!! but in my class, they say that professionals tend to like darker photos...and i'm not a professional, so i can like this bright cheery ones, right?

i like the first and the third one because the background was all black, which was striking, but i gave it this nice orange-y glow....which i think looks cool.

so these mums were bought for my mom. but i probably need to specify which mom. i tend to collect moms, like i collect frogs...just kidding moms! i just find myself surrounded by a lot of women, maybe it is because of avon, some of it is because of who i married and some is just pure luck.

mom #1, is the mom who gave birth to me. she'll be the one who i call mom the most often. and she's the one who the mums were bought for. she likes to take pictures too. she's probably a better photographer than i am but maybe a little more shy about sharing her photos with others. she's a busy lady. i got my love of science and art from her. (thanks mom!) she's very 'math-y' and science-nerdy but still creative and artsy. it is a weird combination but we're goats (chinese horoscope wise) so maybe it has something to do with that. she's also a pseudo-vet. (i consider myself a pseudo-doctor sometimes, but that's just because i feel like i have more of a medical background than the average joe and my family always comes to me for medical advice, even though i'm no where near a doctor....) ok, back to the pseudo-vet. she loves animals and knows a lot about them. she's worked for a vet, so she's been exposed to that kind of stuff. i always go to her when i have a vet question. she's good like that.

mom in colorado, is the mom of my husband. i don't want to call her mom #2, because, well, numbering the moms seems like i'm ranking them and i don't want them to feel bad because they can't all be mom #1. i call her mom also, and sometimes when i'm explaining things to other people, my mother-in law, because calling everyone mom is confusing for people. anyways, mom in colorado, is also an artist. i'm not sure how this all works out, that my moms are so artsy....but, back to colorado mom....she's a definitely a more professional photographer than me. she's had her work published many times over. and i'm sure she never, never likes photos that are too overexposed. but besides photography, she paints, draws and all sorts of things, even woodworking. hard core artsy. i also need to mention that she's german. like FROM germany, not just of german decent. she did get her citizenship a few years back, but she still has an accent, you know, 'proof' that she's a real german. she's also the one to go to when you have any questions about travel. she's like the travel guide/agent of the family.

maybe the next 'mom' i should talk about is my step-mother-in-law. she doesn't get called mom, because, well, she came into hans' life when he was older, so he's always called her by her first name. but she's artsy too! holy moly, this woman can paint. she's starting to do some drawing too. and she can dance. she could dance circles around all of my moms and me. (sorry moms, but i gotta be a little honest!) not just dancing, but official, ballroom dancing kind of stuff, i'm sure i could beat her in car dancing. (car dancing is the dancing you do while seated in a car, either as a passenger or a driver...also known as chair dancing....) i think she also did some synchronized swimming, which is something that i think is very artsy...

my next mom got to be called mom because she could be my mom's twin sister. she's a southern bell (even if she doesn't think so!) is that supposed to be bell or belle? oh man, i don't know my southern well enough! spell check can't even help me! so this mom is my most recently adopted mom. but she's great. she also happens to be german....hmmmm.....very interesting.....she doesn't have an accent except when she speaks german. then you can tell. no gerglish for her! (gerglish is like spanglish, except not as well known) i haven't been to this mom's house to see if she's got photos or paintings all over the walls. but i have a feeling that she could hold her own in the art department.

i don't know if i have a lot of other people that get called mom....i do tend to call a lot of people 'mama'. its my way of giving them a loving nickname. i like calling people by nicknames, its more personal and.....well, seems more affectionate. plus when they have a bunch of kiddos running around, they are mama. i'm not old enough to call everyone honey, sweetie, darling....although i can't wait. i love when the old waitresses call you hun. makes me feel good.

i have called other people mom in the past, mostly friend's mom's growing up. and my teacher's, mostly by accident. especially my third and fourth grade teacher, i remember calling them mom by accident.

and there you go. my mums and my moms all summed up.

p.s. sorry moms if i forgot anything important you think i should have remembered....

this is a test....

mostly to see if i can tell a difference.....or you can tell a difference....

so, is there??

silly cows, just for mom.......

so, my mom, who reads my blog (sometimes, when she remembers and she's at work with high speed internet and who will never leave an actual comment but rather send me an email telling me what she liked about it and what i should or shouldn't post on here) has requested more cow pics. i think my mom is silly. so here's some silly cow pics. just for you mom. (i love you!)

this silly cow rubbed her head all over the hay bale and then tried to eat from the center of the bale. that is why she is covered in hay....silly cow...


mom also requested cute cow chin photos. here you go! doesn't get any cuter than that! right? see the cows lined up behind her? they were waiting to be fed. silly cows.....

another silly photo. what was this cow doing? its like a milk mustache....only, um, snow.....and i love the look on the other cow's face, "oh geez, bessy, she caught you on camera" silly cows....oops, this might be a silly diana pic, instead of a silly cow pic. i call this one, "why i don't sell avon to cows" or why i shouldn't be left alone with photoshop for too long. silly me.....

and this is my personal favorite. it cracks me up! hahaha! she had an itch. see in the cow world, this is socially acceptable. in the human world, only boys do this in public. silly boys. but funny thing about this photo, once i showed it to my father-in-law, it made him chuckle and turn away. that made me laugh even more. i love this photo. it isn't going to win any contests, but i think it is great. silly cow.....

winter blah....

one of the bad things about living in montana is that you have to deal with winter several months of the year. it isn't always bad, snow is beautiful and when snow covers everything, it can be really amazing. plus, it is often very sunny here, which helps everything seem better. but this post isn't about the good and bad things of montana living....

the bad part of winter is the grey days, the days where the sun doesn't want to come out and you don't feel like it will ever come out again (but it will, in a couple hours even!)

last month i went out (on one of those grey, yucky days) and about with my camera and took a couple shots that i thought i'd share.

this is just some dead flower that i thought just looked cool. it was really cold and windy that day, with no sun, not a great time to be outside taking pics, but i tried. i do like that i got the background completely out of focus, so that there is nothing distracting from the dead flower....

so, it was very snowy that day (the snow hadn't melted yet) and as i was driving around, i saw this:
i'm not sure what it is, i call it 'red cup, white snow'. i like to imagine how it got there (did the wind just blow it there? was there a party and this is a leftover cup? did some crazy, fit-throwing kid toss it out the window of his/her parents car?) i also think it is weird how much trash you can find when out in nature. sure, i probably should have picked this up, but i liked it too much. it kind of reminds me of those paintings that are just a giant canvas with one red square on it, you know, the kind that hangs in high end galleries and sells for more money than i will ever make. i just hope that someone else saw it and thought, even for a second, that it was beautiful and not just trash....