Day 219: More of These Sweet Goofballs

I know it's more of the same from yesterday, but these just warm my heart. These three girls have been friends since first grade, and for years, played viola together. Until college, and now marriage, has put them in different places.

Day 218: Ruth and Dianna

Day 217: Dancing with the Men in her Life

Dianna thought it wouldn't be a good idea if I took a lot of photos at the wedding, so I just brought one lens, my Beloved 105 mm 2.0 lens. At the reception, Dianna and her friends called me to the main table and said they'd hired the photographer for just the church, and asked if I'd take a photo of cutting the cake. Dianna said, "go crazy with the camera, mom; be the papparazzi!"

The gloves were off! And I was delighted to do what I could with just the one lens, no tripod or external flash. (and being a very definite novice!)

Anyway, I had a blast, have about 170 photos. I just took shots that appealed to me and I hoped they'd like, and hopefully others will give them lots of photos from their cameras as well.

I shot these with RAW, am editing them with CS3, and am using some of Ren's actions, and EZactions. I'm trying to go through them, crop them the best I can, and make some adjustments, trying to avoid anything wild, but enhancing them where I can. (It's not the time to include the Zuchinni Girls!

If you have some basic recommendations to just get a nice set of photos in my sweet little friend's hands, on a CD, so she can print what she wants, PLEASE, PLEASE LET ME KNOW! I've edited about 10 of them so far.

Thanks!





For this next one, I saved one that was edited more like the above photo, but used the Sun Kissed easy action on this one as well, and will include both on the CD.

Day 216: Wedding Fun

These wedding pictures are at my daughter's friend's wedding. Dianna and Carrie have been friends since first grade! I tell you, it's a real shock to the system to see your youngest's friends getting married! I know the photos are blurry, but I'm really liking even the flawed photos!

Day 215: Beadwork

Look at this beautiful beadwork on the my friend's dress. She is the mother of the bride at a wedding I attended last night! I'll have many more beautiful wedding photos to post in the days to come!

Day 214: Heading Back into the Drink

OK, I've decided. There's more of a learning curve for diving (as it should be) than I expected, but I really want to do this. One of the things I really like about scuba diving is that it's actually DOING something. It's not just another window into others' lives.

I've worked out my own "Scuba Diving Remediation Plan" and am going to repeat the pool portion of the certification program before I do the open dives again. I may not be able to do the open dives this fall (at least not around here :) )




But part of my remediation plan means my knee has to get better. I went to my MD and he said I have a meniscal tear. Meniscus schmiskus! He gave me a set of exercises, which I've started, and I'm hoping to head back to the pool next week for snorkeling back and forth, back and forth, during lap swims. Once I think I can do it, I'll start water aerobics again.

And the pool portion of the class is going to involve my driving to Fargo (about 70 miles away) Sept 4, 5th and 6th.

Maybe I won't be able to do it. But I'll find out by life letting me know rather than second guessing this and just saying "I can't."

Anybody else watching shark week on TV this week? Lots of cool scuba diving!

Day 213: Oh, You Nasty Zucchini Girls!

Cavorting in the Summer Garden!


We'll just have to have you for dinner!

Day 212: The Road Back Home from Long Lake

The area around Long Lake, which is near Lake Itasca, MN, is so beautiful. Had we been there at night, we would likely have heard loons.

Day 211: Roadside Oddity

Just another roadside oddity. As Doug and I drove away from the lake, heading back to the hotel and ice for my knee, we stopped occasionally for a roadside photo. I couldn't quite walk to get into position to change angles, but we were entertained by the interesting things along the way. My sweet DH was willing to stop anywhere I asked! I have no clue what this is. . . it could be farm equipment. . . . it could be something all welded together to be some kind of art sculpture.

Thank you, everyone, for the suggestions and perspectives yesterday on my Scuba Fiasco. Now, I'm thinking along the lines of IF I were to pursue certification, what's my Remediation Plan. I know I wouldn't just sign up for another open water dive; I'd want to do a few things to move me closer to being more comfortable with this.

P.S. Don't you just hate it when you try to type. . . and you have the hiccups?

Day 210: Knowing When to Fold 'Em (Scuba)

Things did not turn out as I'd hoped at my Scuba open water dive this weekend, and I'm doing some soul-searching and serious thinking about what I want to do.

This is Small Potatoes in the grand scheme of things, but I have to level with myself about what's realistic and wise when you're just a week or two shy of 55 years old. And live in a land-locked state with infrequent chances to even be where scuba diving would be available.

Doug and I went to Long Lake this weekend and I was pretty excited about this part of the dive training. It was to be the first time out of the pool (other than the Mexico trip), with 4 dives in the lake. I'd worked hard on reviewing written materials, having the technical details down in my mind, doing water aerobics, and doing laps in the pool with the snorkel, mask and fins. I even watched videos of some of the skills on You-tube to ease my way into some competence with this.

Long Lake, MN Look at all this gear!

You would not believe how hard it is to get these wetsuits on!

Putting on the fins is a two person, coordinated, effort.

That's me to the right of the center. Me and many, many pounds of gear.

The instructor is trying to help me establish neutral bouyancy and get the correct amount of weight added to my gear. He's literally standing on my feet while I fall back under water.

Snorkeling to the float; I'm in the bottom right. Already, I'm having trouble with the position of my snorkel, the bouyancy of my wetsuit, and water leaking into my mask as I mess with the snorkel.

This is where my attempted descent and undoing occurred.

But I was really thrown by the wetsuit and its level of bouyancy. Snorkeling out to the float in the lake felt very unstable. But then I really struggled with the descent. Once you let all the air out of your bouyancy device (a jacket with air in it), you're suppose to sink. I wasn't sinking. And my fins kept floating up behind me, and I compounded the problem by floundering around with my fins (which makes you go up and not down), and somehow also flooding my mask. At this point, I started to panic, couldn't get my mask cleared and kept swallowing water, and then surfaced.

I told the instructor that maybe scuba just really isn't for me after all. The instructor, who is very good, was reassuring and willing to help me calm down and try again, or take a break on shore and he'd help me individually with a descent. He later reminded me that once I got below the surface, the water pressure would have compressed the suit enough that bouyancy wouldn't have been so problematic; it's while you're on the surface that you struggle the most with controlling movements. So I headed back to shore, but didn't know the proper way to exit the water. I got very close to the shore and stood up with all the gear on (a 40 lb tank, and about 30 lbs in weights!, as well as the rest of the gear.)

I felt this snapping in my knee and it twisted out. At this point, I pretty much knew my diving was over for the day. But as I sat on shore waiting for my husband to come back and the rest of the group and instructors to return, I thought more about this. The lake water was not anything like what I'd hoped. The visibility was really bad; it was hard to even see the person right in front of me. And realistically, these would be the lakes I'd get to scuba in maybe once or twice each summer.

Maybe once a year (although likely less) I'd get to go on a trip to a more tropical place, and see all these really cool fish and ocean life that I saw while I was in Mexico. You don't need extremely bouyant wet suits in Mexico. But I live in North Dakota!

Doug doesn't scuba, (and I was a Terrible salesperson for him this weekend!). I have this fantasy of getting to go diving with my kids (2 of them have gotten certification), but how often would they even be able to go diving or take trips as they launch into their young adult lives? Or want to with their mom!

And I actually like snorkeling more in some ways. The only thing I really like more about scuba, strangely, is getting to play with the equipment, and maybe the "boasting rights." (as in, "when I was on the bottom of the ocean, I saw a creature that has a mustache just like yours!") Ok, maybe not that.

Which brings me to this point as well. I really don't NEED to know how to scuba dive or have this as a hobby. Scuba diving is really interesting and exciting, but so are other things. Like photography. And there's plenty of equipment I can play with in photography! And if I don't do scuba diving, I'll have more of a chance to buy photography stuff. And at 55, how many more years could I do this anyway? I know that in diving, the 50s are actually a fairly frequent point at which people learn to do this (kids launching and all), but in ND??????

But sometimes I want my life to be less "Andy (Andrea?) of Mayberry" but not quite "Biker Chick" (with apologies to Biker Chicks).

Interest in diving did get me going to the pool to do water aerobics, doing the lap swimming with the fins, snorkel and mask, and I'll probably sign up for adult swimming lessons in the fall (because maybe, after all, I really should know this as well :) And if next summer, I really, really still want to do this, I can start the pool portion of diving over and make sure I really have the skills down before heading out.

What are your thoughts about all this? Oh, and by the way, my DH took these photos. . . .