Do you know that I am not romantic at all? Do you know that I will happily watch a B Thriller over a Chick Flick any day? How about that I ♥ LOVE suspense books but would never pick up a romance? Do these things help you understand how hard this week’s “Love Story” Fun Monday was for me?

Limber and graceful she clung to him.

The moment she touched his firm bark she knew that she must have him in her life for all eternity.

She tried to impress him with her twig imitation. Long and lithe, a perfect blend, she held on through the strongest winds.

When that failed to impress him,

She began to plead. She begged and she begged and told him her need. He simply hung there, with his leafy hair blowing in the breeze.

She used the only tool she had to make a permanent announcement of her love for him. Their names carved in a heart.

‘Love you ~ Rider + Merit 93’

Sorry A Monkey in the Wrong Tree, that’s as mushy as I can get. I found the carving on the birch in the Upper Whiting Park in Whiting, Wisconsin and I am curious about who Rider and Merit are, and if, 15 years later, their love is still as strong as the carving. Just one of Wisconsin’s little mysteries.

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Colton Scott was born September 5th and weighed in at 8 lbs.

Sorry for the quality of the photo but at the moment it is the only one we have of our newest grandson.  And I thank our son, Bryan, for snapping it with his cell phone and sending it our way.  If all goes as planned we will be snapping photos of him next weekend. :)  And yes he now has a name, although they plan on calling him Cole.

I love snapping photos of these little bees so I can admire how they’re made. They truly are intricate! I often wonder how something appearing so flimsy and small can help they to fly and even move so fast!

A tiny grasshopper on group of blooms can be so easily overlooked, then become magnified through the lens. I remember childhood days of catching them, to have spit on me and my stained fingers happily holding a jar full of echoing jumps.

Is it a green bee? Wasp? Fly? Creepy!

Black and yellow - not a fuzzy bee, but a smooth with black cellophane wings. Big head, little butt.

A tiny grasshopper hidden on a daisy.

Maybe there’s a tiny critter hidden here?

Are words really necessary?

Marissa gave birth to an 8lb baby boy tonight!  Yippee!  We can’t wait to meet him.  He doesn’t have a name yet, but he’s here and he’s healthy and that’s what matters most.

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Peek-a-boo!

While I was out photographing birds and flowers and butterflies and dragonflies, I stumbled upon this funny little happy looking bug. I have no clue what it is, do you?

Thanx Klaus!  I figured you would know what this little cutie was.  Hello Red Milkweed Beetle!  But I loved everyone’s creative answers and ideas!

I used to have a huge desk (this photo is 4 years old). I loved that old thing, but as nice as it was to have the huge work surface, it was not so nice to move.  It was heavy!  We moved it three times but decided to sell it before the last move.  Now I use the small antique library table I showed you Monday and I absolutely love that table, but I quickly run out of room on it.  You saw it in rare form, typically I leave it neat but you caught me in the middle of creativeness and soon as the cards were done it was cleaned up again.  One weird thing I must do is straighten my work surface before each use.  Sometimes, I get so caught up in the replacement of objects to their rightful places that I never get to start on the new project because I’ve moved on to the kitchen cabinets, closets or the garage. . .

I can’t decide if I prefer the one with more depth of field or less? Which one do you like? I know that neither one makes you jump for joy - they don’t me, but I was just playing with settings and such and just cannot make up my mind if I like more or less in focus.

Anyway, you may have noticed that I’ve been using Thursdays as my little update time. The one day a week I set aside to talk about me and what’s going on in my life. It seems to work for me, I have tons of photos and things to show but really not that much to say so one day a week works. Don’t really know why I just told you that, but I did so there.

Now, update time: First up, Marissa - we’re still waiting. Believe me, I’ll tell you as soon as I know. She’s feeling totally full of baby and is just as anxious as we are for him to come and see the world. Any day now, he will decide to.

I just love the long tassel thingie on these flowers and think the outside looks an intricately unique as the inside.

Britney had a check up today to see how her baby is baking and the doctor couldn’t get a good measurement, so they sent her for another ultrasound. The ultrasound showed that she is right on schedule, she’s just not going to be an 8 lb baby like Tristan was. She will be a tiny little petite girl coming into the world around Christmas (probably with a huge snowstorm). So all is well there.

Don’t the little threads inside make you think of pumpkins and leaves turning and fall? We just had a few really hot days - we actually hit 90 degrees for the first time all summer and then we crashed down to 57 overnight. We’re nice and cool again.

We found a cute welcome sign to put by the front door, but while we were looking we came across this. . .

I know the photo’s not the greatest (it was taken with my Blackberry) but, huh? I really liked the leaves, the sign, but they only had this misspelled one. So it stayed at the store.

A couple of searches that people have some to my blog by have me giggling.  ‘lisa quit looking here’ - I know I’m weird but that one totally cracks me up, here I am looking at search terms and someone is telling me now to!  I find it hilarious.

The ‘Swimming at Jolly mills’ search makes me laugh because the post they would find would be the one with the cottonmouths.  I wonder if they ended up going swimming after that.

‘english majors do it loquaciously’ - sounds like the kind of people I would like hanging out with.

On a totally other topic, some girls have gotten together to throw an event they are calling ‘Reunion of the Brides’, here in the Stevens Point area. Basically, it’s like the reception you had after your wedding, except everyone there will be the brides and grooms. It sounds like loads of fun, and since I know I have a few Wisconsin readers I thought it would be worth sharing. You can check out the details on their website, or email me if you have trouble with it loading (it doesn’t seem to like Firefox right now, but they’re working on it).

Yoo-hoo, anyone out there? I would like to meet some of the bloggers reading me and ones I read. I know most of you are too far away but some of you are close, or at least in the same state. We should do it. Maybe even several of us could meet up together. Anyone interested? I’m sure we could coordinate something that would work for all of us.

There was something in the middle of the road. Hubby threw the car into park and out we jumped, cameras in hand. The lens you see up there is the fisheye (on the Canon 5D) and if you scroll down to the bottom you can see one of the shots Dennis took. He really was only a couple of inches from the turtle; the neat thing about the fisheye is you can be really close.

The turtle willingly stopped and posed for his paparazzi.

He even waved at the camera.

I guess he was waving ‘bye’, cuz then he was off like a flash, well, uh actually more like a tortoise.

I snapped a few close ups, from a distance, if that makes sense. I was using the Canon 40D with the huge honkin lens (100-400mm), too lazy to take it off after birding.

I love the moss on his shell (it gives him character) and the stripe on his eye that matches his body.

As promised, here’s one of Dennis’s photos and me in the background, about five feet from Mr Turtle, as that’s as close as I can be to focus with that huge lens.  Sidenote - You see that is the bad thing about his using the fisheye, it has 180 degree view so I have to be slightly behind him or I will be in the shot.  And honestly, when we plan a day in the woods taking photos I don’t exactly dress up for a photo, afterall, I’m supposed to be behind the camera, not in front of it.

We got word this morning that Marissa is in labor.  We are excitedly waiting for more news (she’s in Missouri), but we should be grandparents once again by the end of the day.  I’ll let you know when I know!

I chose the flower photo because I thought the red area kinda looked like a heart.  And babies equal ♥ hearts, right?!

UPDATE: Well, my step-son called, ‘Oops, he forget to tell us the hospital sent her back home’, Braxton Hicks, so we still get to wait a little while longer. :(  I’m so impatient!  Ever since I had the dream about her being pregnant I have been anxious to meet the little fellow.  Her due date is the 5th, so really any day now, right?

I was happy when Gattina jumped in and said she would host the next Fun Monday because I was starting to panic, worrying about who was going to host and if I should just maybe go off on my own and start posting a “Macro Monday” like I have thought about doing.  Then, she goes and asks us something so revealing that I still almost didn’t sign up.

By Sunday, I am sitting here thinking, ‘Wow, where did the weekend go?’ and ‘What the heck, I’ll reveal what a disorganized mess I am.’  Honestly, I blog from many, many places.  My husband travels with his job and I often go with him.  So I might be blogging from a motel in Door County or a Starbucks in Lake Geneva, I might be offline preparing a post or photos while sitting in the car while hubs is in a plant.  Sometimes, I prepare a written post on the PDA while waiting for him.

Often I sit in bed and blog, or if I really need some place to concentrate I move to a chair in the yard.  The yard is great place to think, communing with nature while my wheels turn.  But there is another place I blog and read blogs and scrapbook and make cards and . . .

So there it is, in all its glory, my desk!  I’ve made a few cards this week and trusted that you wanted my desk as it set today, no preparing it, scrubbing it down and cleaning it off.  Yes, my laptop does still fit on it.

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Guess what, hubs updated our Newdae Photography Website, if you have a chance maybe you can pop over and check it out?