120/365...Control

Rush, rush, rush...take a picture. Oh, cool. I can use that.

Tennis, anyone?

Anyone who knows me (or reads my blog long enough) knows that the wife and I aren't crazy about Florida. We're not beach-goers, we don't enjoy the outdoors and definitely hate abhor detest don't like the hot weather. Off and on, we've flirted with the idea of escaping moving, only to be drawn back in by one thing or another...job (or lack thereof), the housing market crash, dream job found, etc..

Recently, however, the lovely bride has become hooked on touristing, as she calls it. Basically, it's about finding different things to do where you live and then experiencing them just as a tourist might. This has led to Sunday excursions, the occasional trip to the (gasp!) beach and new and different restaurants in the area.

OK...long story longer...

Friday nights are date nights for the husband/wife Long. Typically, a movie. Except there were absolutely NO movies we wanted to see this week. At all. Earlier this week, as we're driving around running some errands, we stumbled across Old Northeast Tavern. Loved the location and loved the look of the place, so we settled it...this would be our date night destination.

The place was everything we could have hoped for...Turkey and strawberry sandwiches, sliders, pinot noir, and Magic Hat #9. Quintessential tavern food. We even found some friends hanging out there as well.

Lovely evening. Nearby is North Shore Park and we decided to tourist away, even though it was dark. I still hadn't found my picture of the day and figured I would once again be running around the house trying to find something interesting to capture at 11:00 at night.

Until...

...we found the lighted tennis courts. Sweet! I don't play (well). Never have and never will. I suck at sports. Period. But, the nets, the lights, the shadows were all too much to pass up.

So, I ended up getting out for a night, finding a new one of my favorite restaurants and got my pic for the day all before 10:00. And I didn't have to frantically scramble around looking for even more Legos to snap.

This week, I'm linking to the Live Every Moment photo challenge. Check it out!

119/365...Tennis, anyone?

After dinner tonight, we took a stroll to North Shore Park near downtown St. Pete. Beach, lots of stroll paths and lighted tennis courts. I thought I might be able to get some pretty cool pictures and ended up with this one.

117/365...Accordion

This toy accordion is the bane of the family dog, Rex's existence. Anytime we play with it, goes nuts. Naturally, we do this all the time.

116/365...Plaid tie optional

I've always been a little daring when it comes to fashion. Not over-the-top or flamboyant...just a little more daring. This past Christmas, I asked the lovely wife for a bow tie. Nothing fancy...just a tie for a different fashion statement.

I catch some flack from time to time when I wear it, but I really don't mind. It's me and it's nothing offensive...just a little off-kilter and different. The funniest thing was when I wore it to a concert on New Year's Eve and someone at the venue asked me a question about the food as if I was a waiter. I guess I asked for that one, though.

115/365...Falling Slowly

Here is a capture of the sheet music to one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite movies, Once. If you haven't already, please please, PLEASE see it.

114/365...Coloring eggs?

We colored eggs today. Well, we colored something today. Judging from the picture, I think it was more like colored fingers. It's all just semantics.

My Easter

I know I've mentioned this a couple of times, but I'm a worship leader at the St. Pete Vineyard Church. So, for me, Easter is so much more than only the spiritual emphasis that the holiday holds for, well, pretty much the ENTIRE Christian church.

Don't get me wrong, I love the spiritual emphasis and reflection that we, as Christians, engage in each year. But it also means weeks of prep work, building four or five weeks of song lists that point to the person, ministry and work of Christ. It means a 5:30 AM alarm and solid "stuff" to do from 6:45 AM until around 12:00 PM.

You know what? I love it all. I sincerely do. I love what I do as my part-part-part-time job. I love the people, the excitement, the anticipation and celebration and all the details that go on behind the scenes. I love hanging out at Guitar Center for an hour or two on Saturday morning picking up cords and wires and looking at all the goodies there so we can seamlessly pull off a block party/easter egg hunt/concert the day before Easter. I love the kids hunting easter eggs as well as the stuffing and hiding of the same eggs. And I love all the extra chocolate Easter brings.

So, my interpretation of what part of Easter means to me may be different than the typical eggs and bunnies and peeps and stuff. But, this is what I do come Easter time. I setup and break down and create and tweak and get to be an integral part of the Easter celebration. It's part of my life and part of my DNA and also the greatest (part-part-part-time) job I've ever had. So I love Easter and I also love all of my Easter.

113/365:

FYI...I'm linking up to the Live Every Moment photo challenge with this post.

112/365...Boys at play

My youngest son, Jackson, turned 8 on Monday. Tonight, we had his official party. With four of his buddies. As a sleepover. Such.noisy.boys. And full of incredible and unending energy. Here's just a brief "capture of the excitement.

I'm linking up with Sweet Shot Tuesday with this post as well.

111/365...Dusty guitar

Easter Sunday, 2010. I bought this wonderful guitar. I know exactly 3 chords. One year, three chords. And that's why the guitar is so dusty.

110/365...Family

We've recently become a family of Apple products. This started with my iPod. Then we moved to the iPhones. The iPad was next and, finally, my lovely bride's MacBook Pro. It's official, we're an Apple family.

109/365...Sugar

This is my wife's favorite sugar bowl that she spent way too much money on from Anthopologie a couple of years ago. She loves this thing.

108/365...Peter Grimm

I love this hat. I got it in South Dakota last summer and it reminds me of the blasty blast we had in the Black Hills. It's about time to dust it off and start wearing it again.

107/365...Tank

Today we took a family trip to War Veteran's Memorial Park. More to come, but here's a peek.

106/365...Jacaranda

Jacaranda blossoms on my Grandmother's front yard.

Textures

I've recently started taking part in a second photo challenge from Live Every Moment. Last week, it was all about 'Anything'. Easy. This week, 'Textures', either natural or added. Hmm.

The cool thing I discovered is that I actually am naturally attracted to different textures in my pictures that I've been taking every day. So, I figured this couldn't be that difficult. Right? Am I right?

First thing I found was our brick fireplace. Fantastic texture.

I like it, but don't love it. How about Cinnamon Toast Crunch? In the shape of a question mark.

Clever. Quirky. But not quite there. Jacaranda blossoms in the middle of my Grandmother's front yard? Now we're cooking with gas.

And the picture that I finally love...

Today, I'm linking up with the Live Every Moment photo challenge.

I've also linked up with Sweet Shot Tuesday as well:

105/365...Texture?

I've been playing around with photos of texture, both natural and added. So, when I saw a mostly eaten bowl of Golden Grahams sitting on the counter this morning, I started messing around with them to see what I could get. Is this enough texture? Natural enough?

104/365...Hull

Blech...that's an actual word for today. I thought this picture was going to kick butt. Not so much and I couldn't figure out how to make it better. Eh...you win some and you lose some.

103/365...Radio

Friends of Giants were interviewed on the Grassroots Groove radio show on Bulls Radio (WMNF) here in the Tampa market. The cool part was that a couple of us non-band members got to tag along and watch. I wish more of the pictures I took had come out better, but this seemed to be one of the best ones of the bunch.

102/365...Hope

Dead orchid on our porch, but full of potential, promise and hope.

Hope, or a girl with a non-green thumb

I do my share of self-deprecation in this space and it is so thoroughly well deserved. I've worked long and hard to be as goofy/silly/forgetful/hair-brained as I am. But, I'm not alone. My lovely wife has her own eccentricities and I'm all to happy to poke fun at her any chance I get.

One thing we love about being part of the Vineyard church we attend is that we host a home group. Basically, a weekly gathering of friends where we can more informally talk, laugh, cry and just be ourselves.

With a house overrun with boys, cleaning and getting ready every Wednesday night is no easy task for my beloved other. Usually, around 5:00, I'm frantically pitching to finish things up, which almost always includes sweeping the porch and walkway up to our little house. Last week, I began to notice a trend. We (meaning, my beautiful and ravishing bride) have a collection of dead plants on our porch. Not dying. Not "wow, this one's looking pretty ragged". Not just seen better days. Dead. For the sake of reference, here is (part of) the current murdered row I found on our porch:

Along with the always impossible-to-keep-alive orchid...

So, I asked her.

And the response was everything I could have already predicted after 20 years together and nearly 16 years of wedded bliss; a combo platter of thrift and eternal optimism. Thrift, because so many of the pots are "too cute to discard" mixed with "Do you know how much I paid for that plant because I loved the pot so much?"

And eternal optimism that someway, somehow, the deceased plant will pull through and eventually make it. You know what? I get it. I totally do. She's an optimistic chick, somehow always discovering and discerning the good stuff. I actually am, too, which is probably why we are so MFEO. If you know us well, we may sometimes irritate you with our collective positive vibe, but we can't really help it...we are wired to hope. We cannot help but expect awesome.

Is it always awesome? Are things always incredible? Not really, if we honestly examine circumstance. But, there's always hope. And a healthy dose of hope can make just about anything pretty awesome. With all that said, the almost/nearly/as-door-nails dead plants still sit on our porch, left alone, biding their time, expectant. Full of promise, potential and armed with a super-sized heaping of hope.

101/365...The other

This is the other camera belonging to the other photographer in the Long house. I thought it made for an interesting subject.

100/365...Legovention

This is an example of one of many, many, MANY inventions my 11-year old comes up with from his many, many, MANY boxes of Legos.

099/365...Roseville

This was one of our very first purchases after we got married. This little vase is just so stinking cool.

098/365...Bumper cars

We went to visit some awesome friends that are visiting from Georgia and then walked to a fair near the place they were staying. Here are the bumper cars.

097/365...Friends of Giants

OK...so no picture tonight, but I have something much cooler. My wife (and brother-in-law's band), Friends of Giants were featured by tbt* (which is the entertainment paper for the St. Petersburg Times). I'm just so incredibly excited for them. Below is the video as well as a link to the article. Please do check them out, they'd love to hear some feedback and "atta boys".



Here's the link to the article:

Friends of Giants: Faith in their music pays off

096/365...I love lamp

Seriously...I do. I love this lamp. It's one of my favorite decorations around the house.

095/365...Jacob's ladder?

Jackson got his own Jacob's Ladder toy recently and just loves it. For about a week, he took it with him everywhere and was fascinated with getting it "just right". The infatuation is starting to wane, but I couldn't resist getting a shot of the colors.

Son of a beach!

Update: I'm linking up with Live Every Moment's photo challenge with this link.

The Long family went to the beach. Twice. In one week. Somewhat Willingly. Shocking, right?

In case you don't know, the Longs aren't too fond of Florida beaches. I should rephrase: Mom and dad Long aren't too fond of Florida beaches. Son and son Long are just fine with the beach. All of my northern or bad weather readers should put down their rotten vegetables and hear me out on this.

Florida (more specifically, gulf coast) beaches suck. It's that simple. Codos or motels or other ugly concrete monstrosities are built nearly right up to the water. The water pushes 90 degrees in the summer and the sand is very rocky and sticky. And the water is a weird brownish-green-gray color, preventing you from seeing anything past 6 inches deep. The upside...you don't get to experience the terror of seeing when a shark/stingray/jellyfish attacks you. It's a total surprise! I'm sorta kidding.

Back to this past week. Last Wednesday, we we went to the sweet 16 of the coolest teenager we know. At the beach. Ugh! But, we love her and her family dearly and did it. We went to the beach. Pics or it didn't happen? Here's the proof:

In all honesty, we had a great time and were happy to hang with great friends and family and would gladly do it again for our friends. The only downside was the stormy weather that rolled in and stuck around for a day utterly drenching the bay area.

Fast forward to this past Sunday. We're done. We got our obligatory beach visit out of the way, right? Right? If you read any of my recent ramblings (here or here, for instance), you know that the family Long has been keen on post-(mom and dad) nap Sunday afternoon outings. 

This week, no different. We headed to our favorite kid (and dog) energy releaser park (Crescent Lake) for some get-out-of-the-house-away-from-the-Wii-and-TV-family-together-time. Fun. Easy. Simple. 

I'm snapping away, thinking I'll snag a pic of the day here. Power lines? OK...but not great.

Lakeside pic? Eh...alright, but not quite.

The dad-in-law even tagged along since mom-in-law had other stuff to do. And that's where it starts to get interesting. 

Dad-in-law likes sunsets and riding his Harley to the beach and being outdoors and other crap like that. So, as we're pretty much done with the park (and dog park) he says, "Hey, I'd really like to torture you and your lovely wife (my own flesh and blood, incidentally) by dragging you to the beach to participate in one of your least favorite activities. You down?" OK...maybe I'm exaggerating a tad. But, in a rare moment of weakness, we were down. And to the beach we went. Again. For the second time. In a week. Ugh.

But...there was this...

And this...

This...

Also, this...

And, eventually, this...

In the end, another great day in another great week. Even at the beach. Twice. And *sigh* delightfully, willingly. Ah...