Weekly Winners: January 23-29

Today's photographs come to you courtesy of my phone. Sorta. Whatever.

Shadow play:

Pay no attention to the bad puffy hair day I was having ...

Sunrise, sunset:

It was sunrise, just for the record

Tuck, tuck, goose!

Ok,  so no, this was not an iPhone photo. Whatever.

Guard dog:

She would have killed me if she had realized I was shooting photos of her while she slept,

but the idea of a guardian rat dog was too tempting for me.

The only shot that actually wasn't taken this week:

This was hanging around on my phone camera roll and brought back some fond memories.

Can you identify this place?

I know some of you can ... and no, there's no prize for guessing correctly.

Weekly Winners is the brainchild of Braden's mother, Lotus. Go visit her and her photographer buddies.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Speaking of visiting, go visit me at You Won't Go Blind, where bedroom hijinks ensue!

Scorpio, oh Scorpio, wherefore art thou, Scorpio?

*Ring ring*

"Hello?"

"Couldn't you have waited 13 more days to give birth?"

Um, what?

Yeah, that was the way the Drama King said hello to me the other day.

It seems that the uproar over "what's your astrological sign NOW?" has cut poor DK to the core. The young man has been a Scorpio since the day he was born (Nov. 10, 1983, for anyone who's counting). He is quite proud of his Scorpiosity. In fact, when he was 18, he went so far as to have a lovely *cough cough* scorpion tattoo permanently affixed to his upper arm/shoulder.

Now, with all the talk of the switch in the stars and signs and stuff, he is grumpily perplexed.
"I guess I have to start thinking about tattoo removal," he humphed.

While this would not be the worst thing he has ever had to do, in my opinion, I was still trying to maintain a straight face as he bemoaned his now-Libra fate.

"NO NO NO," he wept. "I am SO not a Libra. So really, couldn't you have held off for 13 more days?"

I really really REALLY tried not to laugh as I answered.

"No, dear. That arrival time was more determined by YOU than me. And besides, you were already 9 pounds 2 1/2 ounces. Can you imagine how big you would have been two weeks later?????"

Yeah, honestly, it was bad enough as it was, with that huge watermelon head and all. *Shudder* Let's not talk about this anymore, k?

He did find it hilarious that under these new guidelines, my Dec. 9 birthday now would move from the more traditional Sagittarius to some weird serpent thing with an unpronounceable name.

"Occi what? Ophi who? What the heck IS that thing?" I asked him. "To me it sounds like Doc Ock
 -- and that's NOT a good thing!"

"Ophiuchus," DK patiently explained, "is a serpeant-bearer -- like a man grabbing a snake."

*cue the hysterical laughter of a 12-year-old boy masquerading as his mother*

"Uh ... I'm thinking that would be a better sign for YOU."

He was not amused.

Weekly Winners: January 9-15

Holy moly! Two Sundays in a row for Weekly Winner?? Yup, must be cheer competition season.

Just for the record, I adore hanging out with the girls. And I'm a TERRIBLE influence on them, as evidenced by all the photos that I shot Saturday afternoon while we were waiting for the awards ceremony -- most of which I can't post since only one of them is my kid and I try not to do identifiable faces on kids who aren't mine.

They posed, they laughed, they goofed around. "Janet, shoot us!" "Janet, this way ... shoot US." "Now US!!"

I love my girlies.

So here are the things I CAN show you:

Cheer hands:

The yarn bracelets are a team-building thing. They made a complicated web with the yarn

and then the coach cut it up and wrapped pieces of it around each girl's wrist.

They never take them off.

Cheer feet:

And my little girl having a blast in the air:

Yeah, I love my girlies.

Now head over to the house of Lotus, where photographers hang out and link to their Weekly Winners.

Who's that lurking behind my blog? Who dat?

Well.

I ALMOST missed out on one of my favorite exercises in blogland.

The official  indisputable Delurking Day!

Yeah. I love it when I ask people to delurk. I usually do it on my birthday and my blogaversary, but my natal day slipped by and I plum forgot.

So when I woke up this morning and realized, "Hey! It's Delurking Day!" I figured I would make up for lost time.

So... Are you out there? Are you breathing? Show yourself in honor of this momentous blog-wide holiday.

Say hello, hi or howdy. Tell me what your plans are for the weekend (mine include a LOT of cheer competition and high school basketball). Tell me what you love about me. Tell me what you don't. Tell me what you think I should do more of/stop doing. Tell me to write more. Tell me to quit.

Just tell me.

And while you're at it, hop on over to see my latest venture: staff writer for You Won't Go Blind, which relaunched this week. It is the sexually charged brainchild of Melissa's from Rock and Drool and my first post is up today. Go. Delurk there too.

But delurk here first.

Cuz this is my planet and I'll beg if I want to.

Weekly Winners: January 2-8

I haven't done THIS for awhile, but with the cheer competition season getting started, I figured I would have things to show off -- and so ... here I am.

First off, a little overdue piece of business. Not too long ago, I won a gift certificate to Lisa Leonard Designs (a website I lurk endlessly) by entering a contest at A Southern Fairytale, the blog of the amazing Rachel (who I adore endlessly).

Talk about exciting! I had $$ to spend on jewelry. Win-win, obviously. And as I spend a dramatic amount of time with a camera pressed firmly to my face, looking at the world through a lens, I picked this:

 
Get it? it's a camera -- along with a little "j" (for ME!)  I love this piece with the white-hot passion of a thousand autoflashes. Thank you, Rachel and Lisa!!

And now, the other stuff.

The Orange Lantern:

Do you recognize the Drama King behind that orange hoodie?

Me neither.

Rainy day rose:

Sometimes it just all goes bad:

And sometimes? It's perfect:

I recommend clicking on this one to make it big enough to see.

It's part of their competition routine and it ROCKS!

There are more Weekly Winner offerings at Lotus' place. Lotus is amazing. I love her. I especially love her son's baby toes.