New Photos

From the "Children's Garden".




He loves me.....he loves me not.....he loves me......










Zinnia - love the "crown"!




Inch Worm - haven't seen one of these in ages.


Knockout Rose



Some photos I took yesterday at the University of IL's Arboretum and Japanese Garden. I'm tired today - guess it has to do with the 400 photos I took - LOL! Nothing like overdoing it a tad!

Be still my heart

My daughter - quiet for a very brief moment.

New Site

Well, I can't believe it but, I've finally accomplished it. I built my own photography website. Not the best in the computer world, but it works for now. My new photography website is: http://www.christiebielssphotography.com/. I'm going to use that to sell my photos and this blog will continue to just be my aimless ramblings of me and my family! LOL!

I've had a spell of "photographers block" and it seemed like whatever I wanted to take a picture of turned out like poo. Not sure if it was me being in a funk, or if I was doing something wrong, or if the things available to shoot just stunk - but it sure had me stuck. Until today. We have a sweet little baby robin that's hanging close to our house while it's mommy goes off in search of food and brings it home to feed him. I actually captured a little bit of that exchange in the photo above. Would love to be fast enough to capture her actually putting the bug in his beak - but I'll take what I can get at this point. Of course, with me wanting to know how to do everything right this minute, that probably doesn't help matters either. I know I love nature/landscape photography - that is my first love. I love taking pictures of birds, oceans, trees, etc.. I've been thinking about branching out into the bridal portrait arena. I have no desire to do weddings - but to try to create a keepsake for a bride of her wedding dress does seem like fun. Don't know if there's a niche for that since most brides these days seem to do the wedding package and just have their portraits done on their wedding day. And of course, there is always the mother of the bride to deal with - not sure I want to go there either.

So, I'm still in a bit of a funk - but there are worse things to be in.

Hammered

This photo was taken Wednesday night just after a severe storm had passed over us. This was the tail end of it - looked pretty good when it was past. We've been getting hammered recently with severe storm after severe storm. Tuesday night was so bad that me and the kids spent the entire night in the basement. Mike was down there until around 3am - when the storms finally let up. It's taken a couple of days for my nerves to die down from the tornado sirens going off sporadically - and it looks like we're going to have another day of it tomorrow. Ah well, at least when I'm nervous I don't eat. Hmmmmm, maybe I need a few more storms in my life............................nah!

Famous!

I'm famous! I got my 15 minutes of fame today when The Weather Channel aired the photos from the previous post today! I'm excited that someone would actually think they were decent enough to show to the entire country! Yeah!!!! Success - even if it is just for a few minutes!

Storms

I took these Friday evening around 7pm - right after the tornado warning had expired and inbetween severe thunderstorms. It was still raining and lightning so I wasn't brave enough to leave the front porch - hence the houses, cars and post lights in the photos. The greenish cast to the first 2 photos is dead-on for what we were experiencing - never a good color for people or Mother Nature! We had this magnificent double rainbow as well that evening - but those shots didn't turn out so good - too dark. I also captured some lightning - not fabulous - but fun to see. I think you can figure out what I caught with that first photo - and the cloud was spinning pretty good. I just love the sunset shot with the colors, clouds and the suns rays shooting through. Other than increasing the brightness just a hair on the computer, this is the exact sunset that we saw that evening. What a glorious reminder of God's creation!

An update on the kiddos. Zachary has pnemonia and is on the strongest drugs possible without having to have IV antibiotics, i.e. hospitalization. It's working. Katie's crud turned into bronchitis and was given antibiotics as well. One was chosen for her (Omnicef) to try to prevent her from getting an ear infection - since she's so susceptible to them. At midnight this morning, I awoke to her crying uncontrollably. After 30 minutes of carrying a 45 pound 4 year old trying to calm her down - she finally relaxed a bit. As soon as I returned to her room, she started wailing, so I relented and took her downstairs to the tv. After a few minutes she was awake enough and calm enough to tell me her ear hurt......great. Checked her temperature - 102. Crap - no sleep for me anywhere in the near future. And gee, after a full 2 days of our HOA garage sale - that I not only participated in, but did everything for to put it on for the neighborhood. So, at 8:15am we high-tailed it to the local doc-in-a-box where the physician actually used the expression "ewwww" when she looked in Katie's infected ear. Maybe it's sleep deprivation on my part - but give me a break! She gets paid hundreds of dollars for this 5 minute visit - couldn't she just have said "Yep, it's infected"? Ah well. Guess there's a reason why she's in a box and not a regular office. So, the upshot is - Katie is now on the same drug Zachary is on - which causes loads of gas. Where's my air freshner?