Grandma and Clay kisses...PRICELESS.

To see more Kisses, head on over to I Should Be Folding Laundry!

Crooked Eyebrow herself said it perfectly when on Twitter she called it the "quilt that blogging love made".

We all chose a fabric, and I took them all to my mom. We put them all together.

And sorted them so they could be washed.

After we chose the quilt pattern, my mom cut the fabric into squares.

Then we arranged the fabric into the pattern and made sure each square had found the perfect home.

After, we organized labeled each row so no square would lose its way.

Each square was sewn...

and hand tied with such care and love.

We may not have all met face to face yet, but we all are friends. We have a bond. And there is love in that bond. As friends, we wanted to do something very special for a very special little girl. So, that's how the quilt that blogging love was made. And that is how I captured love.

Want to see more You Captures? Head on over to I Should Be Folding Laundry!

This week's You Capture challenge was the color red.

On Sunday, I set out around my parent's house to find the perfect color red shot. My mom's car is red, so I took different shots of different parts of the car, but this one ended up being my favorite.

But that was really the only decent one that I got, so I was all set to just post that one and then I walked by Cagney's cage. Cagney is an African Grey Parrot. Greys have RED tails!

Now, I realize that you may be getting sick of Cagney pictures, but she has a RED tail. How could I not take pictures of it?

So, remember the last time when she nearly got hold of my lens, I but my bigger lens on my camera so that I wouldn't have to get so close to her. But she's a camera diva, and she didn't understand why I didn't want to take pictures of her face, so this turned into a dance of me moving to one side to try to get a shot, and as soon as I focused and shot, I got a blurred picture of her face. So, I'd move to the other side really quick and the same thing. Thirty minutes and 50 shots later, I had three or four decent ones and two good ones.

She's waving to you here. Obviously, she's not aware that I'm not taking a picture of her face.

After thirty minutes, I got pretty quick at the little dance game. Yeah.

And there you have the color red.

Want to see more You Catures? Head on over to I Should Be Folding Laundry!!

In my front yard I have a huge oak tree. It's probably one of my favorite things about my house. I love when the leaves start to turn. That's really when I get my first feeling of fall.

I was so excited this week to see the first few yellow leaves. I know that in just a few weeks the whole tree will be full of bright fall colors. I love to sit on my front porch and watch the squirrel who lives in my tree hide nuts, then find nuts, and jump in the leaves. (He doesn't run. We're tight like that.)

But today as I was driving up my street, I saw that half of my tree was just gone. There are power lines that run through my tree, so I knew the electric company would trim it soon, but those bastards chopped half of my tree away. Including the my squirrel's nest. And now it looks like it may die. I took this picture with my phone. ( I'm going to take better ones tomorrow. I may be writing a very unhappy email to my electric company tomorrow.)

You see where you see sky? You're not suppose to. Now, instead of sitting and looking at my big beautiful tree full of colors and my squirrel hiding and finding nuts, I get to see sky and power lines. *sniff*

Want to see more You Captures? Head on over to I Should Be Folding Laundry!

Yeah, I know I've pretty much sucked here lately and not done my You Capture assignment. And honestly, I wasn't going to participate this week. I feel horrible that I can't comment on everyone else's posts because of scheduling, but I'll try. I promise.

Anyway, I love noses. I don't now why, I just do. So, I decided to wake up all of my animals last night and take pictures of their noses. They were all mad, but I like what I got. Enjoy!

Kelci was pretty much over it by this time.

Now I realize this is more of a head shot, but I was shooting blind since his cage is so small. (Picture my camera in HIS cage, him HISSING, and me taking a zillion shots to get this one. Yeah.) Oh, this is Neville, by the way.

Cagney's Cagney. She's a diva.

This is pretty much Bayleigh's "I hate you" look. But doesn't she have the cutest nose?!

Wanna see more You Captures? Head on over to Beth's place!

When I first saw Beth's You Capture assignment for this week, I wasn't sure how to approach it. Should I take it literally? Something like this?

Or I could have posted how much peace this little booger brings me every single time I have him.

But ultimately, something Thea said brought me to this. I grew up in a house across the street from a cemetery. It never has been spooky to me. Just peaceful. In fact, sometimes still, I just like to walk through it just to pay respect to the lives that once graced this earth.

It's a very old cemetery. While some of the resting places are new, some are very old with nothing more than rocks as headstones.


Some head stones are big and some are small. (PS. That's the house I grew up in there in the background.)

But to me, they're all beautiful because of the thought that each of the person's family took in making the final resting places peaceful ones.

And that's my You Capture for this week.

Or me. Yeah, I guess it's me. ;o)

To really get a sense of me(and where I'm going with this post), I have to take you back two years. This was me two years ago:

Approximately two months after this picture was taken, I decided to change my life. Somewhere in the middle of fixing my outside, I realized that I needed to fix the inside. I saw that I was merely going through the motions of life. I was barely surviving and was holding onto things that kept the weight of the world on my shoulders. I was not happy.

So, I decided to take a deep look within myself.

And I decided to forgive. I forgave myself. I didn't even realize that I was mad at myself. I didn't realize that I was holding onto to so many old feelings, and they were holding me back from really being me. It didn't happen immediately, but eventually, as my weight came off and as I worked on my inside:

I learned that life could be fun. I learned that life wasn't always going to be perfect, and that is okay.

I learned how much I really enjoyed my friends, and my family (most of the time), and yes, even my crazy animals!

I learned to embrace my inner dork. (Because I totally am a dork. A big one. I'm fine with it.) That it was okay to learn to trust not only people in my life, but myself as well.

While I'm so very close to my goal weight, I know that the journey to work on the inside will never be over. I'm just fine with that, because in the last two years, while I literally worked my ass off, I learned to live. And I realize now how much I really love my life.

To see more You Captures, head on over to I Should Be Folding Laundry! Do it now. :o)

Best friends always, always amaze me. The relationship that best friends share is just so special. To know someone so well that you know just how far you can push her before she's had her morning coffee. Or to ask her opinion on what you're wearing for the evening. Or to laugh at something that the other says that no one else gets. "A best friend is a sister that destiny forgot to give you".

A best friend is someone that you can have tons of fun or "get lost" in an unfamiliar city with.
(Okay, so we didn't get lost. We did take a few wrong turns, though.)

A best friend is definitely someone you ride the wienermobile with!
(Sorry for the poor quality, this one was taken on my phone.)

A best friend is someone you can talk to when you can't talk to anyone else. You can cry with her, laugh with her, and take pictures with her.

Last weekend I roomed and spent the weekend with best friends. And I'm so very lucky they let me witness what a truly amazing and wonderful friendship that they share.

If you'd like to see more friends, head on over to Beth's.

Beth's You Capture challenge this week was Shapes. I truly hated geometry (and I was a math major!), but I'll play along. *sigh* Kidding!

I tried all weekend to get nice captures of shapes, but well, sometimes trying to get good shots, while drinking, um, soda, just doesn't work. So, I took these instead.


Square (and diamond):
This is a quilted wall hanging that my mom made to match the quilt she made for my bed. The pattern is called Sparkling Gems. (I think.)

Oval:
This is a dream catcher that I got at a pow wow when I was in high school. It's been hanging in my window every night since then.

Diamond:

Fence. Not much else to say about that. ;o)

Octagon:

Stop sign in the corner of my yard. Please ignore the bird poop.

Circle:
Okay, this was from my Girls' Weekend. I just thought this circular mirror was cool. :o)

Want to see more You Captures? Go over to I Should Be Folding Laundry!

The Salem Fair comes to town every year near the 4th, and while I didn't go on Independence Day, I did go today to take my nephew on his first carousel ride. See?

(Okay, so I think at this point he was still unsure of the ride, but do you SEE what that is in the background? Do you?)

Oh yeah, it's pizza...

And there was cotton candy too. Are you drooling yet?

No? Well just look at this candy apple!!

And there's nothing better than a fresh funnel cake. What do you like on your funnel cake?

There is just nothing like fair food, huh? Who's hungry?

Want to see more You Captures? Head on over to I Should Be Folding Laundry!!