The Big DumpTruck

I'm starting to post more photos to my photography website, Photo-Gnome.net. All photos on that site are actually for sale! You can order prints of anything on the site. If I see that I'm selling anything, maybe I'll pay for the upgrade at SmugMug so that I can actually make money off each sale.



This is a picture I took on the way to work this week. I've been driving up to Merrimack NH every day, and I take back roads through Lunenburg MA. I spotted this barn on Monday and knew I had to take my camera with me.

Labels: fall, photos

I am sad that summer is over. I say this every year, so you don't need to hear me go into my perpetual whine about missing out on summer fun, going to the beach, etc. If I could afford it, I'd go to the beach this weekend. Screw the weather, I just want a room with a view of the ocean. And preferably something with some heat, because that's pretty much unavailable from nature any more.

I'm glad autumn sort of eases in, because if it just dropped from perfect beach day to perfect apple picking day, I would spiral into an out of control case of the dumps. I'd be down in them. But the way it works out, but the time the trees are all turning, I'm excited about it, and I get to have my camera handy to try to take The Most Famous Photo Ever (tm). I have yet to do it, but man, this year is certainly going to be my year. I just know it.

Labels: beach, fall, fireplace, summer

It's gross out. It's the kind of day where you feel like knitting a scarf because you know you're going to need it, possibly later in the day. It's the kind of day where you start to think about things like hot cocoa and fireplaces and how it sucks that your favorite fall fairs only come once a year because in bad weather, you either miss it entirely, or you go but you are miserable and wet and you regret going when your nose starts to run. Is the Bolton Fair worth that? Hmmmm.

I'm kind of in that space right now. It's not actually raining at this moment, but everything is soaking wet with no hope of it drying off. I think it's likely to start raining again at any minute, but I'm not a meteorologist, now, am I? They have not called to cancel Junior's baseball game, so it puts a major cramp in any plans anyway. I liked the first week of fall ball because his game was at 9am. It didn't occur to me when we signed him up that afternoon games would totally screw up my fall fair schedule.

P.S. Added my Twitter feed over there on the right. I wish I could figure out how to make it be any color other than that shade of blue. I may have to use something else to post it, like from Twitter directly. There's a thought. I think it might be time to redesign the whole site anyway...

Labels: baseball, fairs, fall, weather

Look, as of very early this morning, the forecast for the weekend did not look good. I have a problem with that, as there are at least three different things that I want to do this weekend, and not a single one of them involves standing in the rain. I have game 3 of fall ball, it's the Bolton Fair weekend, and also the Ferncol Fair weekend. And you know how much I love me a tour of the cow barn! [Insert obligatory link to the Cow Baby story from 2002.]

But if it's raining, not so much. Bolton won't postpone, I know that. Not sure about Ferncol but I assume they don't either. And they need all the people to come because it funds the extra activities (especially the annual holiday party) for the residents. Plus they have good clam chowdah.

So no rain, okay? I have a lot to do and only 2 days to do it.

Labels: fairs, fall, weather

Someone pointed out to me this morning that today is the first day of fall. I guess that by now, we've been up to our earballs in fall stuff, so it isn't as much of a shock to the system as it would be to have summer end, say, in August. It's a non-event; we already thought it was fall.

That doesn't make me 100% happy, though. I missed most of summer. Didn't really do anything beach-y or vacation-y, you know, the uber summer vacation stuff. As Junior gets older I do feel a sense of panic that the months are years are passing and by the time I can actually take time off from work to go "do" things with him, he won't want to. You know, he'll be a sullen teenager. Or he'll be out of the house. I'm scared to death of that happening because he's just one of the coolest, funniest people I know, and if I don't have him to hang around with, I'm going to be very very sad. Batman needs Robin, you know? And Mr. Dump won't wear tights.

So ya, the end of summer makes me angry. Damn you, earth, and your tilty nature!

Other than that, things are good, thanks for asking. Only a little over a month until the next NaNoWriMo. I think I'm going to do it again. I'm going to guess Christine and Foo are going to avoid talking to me until December 1st so that I won't harass them to sign up.

Labels: autumn, fall, junior, Vacation

Today was the day...Junior picked up the phone all by his lonesome and called my sister to ask her if she wanted to go apple picking. I can't say I was upset, given that I love going apple picking more than I even like eating the apples after I've picked them. As I mentioned on Twitter earlier today, there was an unbelievable bumper crop of apples...more than I've seen in ages. We literally could have filled the bags on just the trees right next to the stand where you traded in your first born for a bag to fill. (Ya, it's more expensive to buy an empty bag you have to fill yourself; on the other hand, my kid personally consumed about a pound of apples while we walked around.

I have a handful of some of the more interesting photos of the day up on flickr...

Labels: autumn, fall, fun

I snub my nose at the calendar. I don't care if it's October 19th (it's the 19th, right?), I decided to wear sandals to work today. You see, I have a ton of cool sandals. I do not have a ton of cool shoes. I don't even have a ton of non-cool shoes. I have nothing that I want to wear to work and that work wants me to wear, y'know?

So because the temperature was going to hit seventy today, I thought I'd wear sandals even though it was supposed to rain today. And I'd do it again. Because that's the kind of person I am. That's how I roll.

(I'm just killing time until a charity crumb apple pie finishes baking. A co-worker's kids go to a school that does this fundraiser...they make hundreds of these pies and sell them, uncooked, for ten bucks each. I love me some apple pie, and I like to support charities. Everybody wins!)

Labels: fall, pie, shoes