Catching Up: Leah and the Grill

I don’t know if I’m coming or going anymore. I wound up skipping taking pictures for a couple of days and I didn’t even realize it! I haven’t been spending very much time actually trying to practice photography either, which I don’t like. This week’s DPS Forum assignment is “Low Angles” and I’m pretty sure I can put together a few pictures that fit that criteria! I need to start challenging myself more and actually learning something. I definitely don’t want to focus all my time on photo editing.

Here are some Project 365 photos I haven’t yet shared in one way or another on this site.

I think this was the day after Leah returned. I took lots of photos of her that day, so I must have been glad she was back.

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The Day Leah Went Missing

On Thursday, I didn’t even think to take any pictures. I was in a fairly deep depression all day because our house cat, Leah, went missing. Because she’s fat and cannot jump higher than a foot and a half in the air if she musters all her energy, we let her outside in the backyard regularly. Sometimes she doesn’t want to come back in with us, so we just let her do her thing out there and she scratches to be let in. Well, Wednesday night Mark and I went outside to take some pictures and chat. It was a beautiful night! When we were done, Leah wasn’t ready to come in, so as usual, we left her out there. We went to bed shortly after that and completely forgot about her! By the time morning came, she had escaped from the backyard.

Since she’s been a house cat for all her 10 years and because there’s a major highway and train tracks very close to our home, we just had no idea if she’d be capable of surviving. We’d been calling for her all day and we took turns walking around the block to see if we could find her, but it turned up nothing.

By evening, I was just sick with worry so I decided to take Noah on a walk around the neighborhood to see if we could find her. Mark had already driven all around the neighborhood and turned up nothing except for a kid who said he saw her at his bus stop at the very edge of the development that morning. I had no idea until we started walking around how huge our development is! We live in the very front and I’ve never been exploring before. I thought to snap this photo to fulfill my Project 365 requirements since I knew I wouldn’t feel like taking any photos that night.

Most of the time, the cat annoys the hell out of me. I had no clue I would be so emotionally affected by her disappearance! I had a big long cry that night and accepted the fact that she was gone. I made Facebook page for her so people in the area could be on the lookout and planned to put up fliers all over the neighborhood and call shelters in the morning.

I stayed up late and Mark stayed up with me. I couldn’t sleep if I wanted to and secretly I was hoping that she would show up. We left the back gate open and her food dish out on the porch even though I knew rabbits would eat from it. We left the porch light on. It was a windy night and the back door creaked several times, as if she were scratching to be let in. Each time I would get up and go look outside, sometimes opening the door to call for her, only to be disappointed.

Close to 1am the door creaked again, a little stronger. I sprang up with hope in my heart and Mark said, “It’s just the wind.” I heard a meow coming from the other side of the door and thought it might just be my imagination. When I opened the door, she was right on the other side and meowing her lungs off! She walked in and we scooped her up and loved on her. Again, she is an annoying furball and I am shocked that I was SO happy to see her return. She didn’t stop meowing for 10 or 15 minutes. Her ears were visibly sunburned and the pads of her feet were super pink. Other than that, she made herself at home like she never left!

The next day she didn’t even go outside and wasn’t demanding to be let out. Since then, she has stepped out and we’ve been careful to check on her frequently if she wants to stay outside a little longer than we want to. We need to get a collar for her with identifying information in case something like this ever happens again, but I pray it never will!

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Have You Seen This Cat?

Update: We thought it was just the wind, but we checked the back door anyway. (We’d left out food and left the gate open.) Sure enough, it was her! I cannot believe how much this bothered me. I hate having her around most of the time, but it was so heartbreaking to hear Elias ask, “Where’s Leah?” all day. I’m so glad she’s home!

• 15lbs, 10 years old
• Grey, Russian Blue style cat
• Green Eyes
• Has a notch off her left ear
• Loud Mouthed
• Demanding
• Friendly and Social

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Weekend Photo Focus: Headless Portraiture

Fuel Your Photography‘s Weekend Photo Focus was on Headless Portraiture. I was inspired by the photos in the article and wanted to take a stab at it. As usual, I’m a day and a half behind editing photos, so I wasn’t able to submit my results before the Weekend Photo Find was published, but it was still an interesting project.

I think I could have done a better job, especially if I gave myself more time to think through the shot. Once again, I fell victim to rushing myself to get shots in by the end of the day. I’d like to revisit this again before the end of the year, perhaps without using my kids as the subject. If you have any examples of headless portraiture you’d like to share, please give me a link in the comments!

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Fun Outside [120/365]

I’m very happy to be living in a house for the first time in almost ten years. It’s spacious, there’s a garage, we don’t have to worry about upstairs or downstairs neighbors and most importantly, there’s a backyard! It’s not a huge backyard or a particularly beautiful backyard, but there is grass, a small patio area and the kids and animals love it out there.

On this day, he tried squirting his plants instead of actually watering them so it’s a good thing it rained earlier.

Elias is obsessed with water. Every time he goes outside, he runs over to the faucet and wants his squirt guns or watering can filled. He planted two different packets of seeds on Earth Day. I’m not sure what they are, but only one of them sprouted. We have some more flowers to plant in containers and also haven’t set up the compost bin yet, which I really want to do soon! We’ve procrastinated because we don’t have anything good on hand to use as the brown matter. We have green matter coming out of our ears and I hate throwing it all away, so we need to get somewhere to buy straw or go on a nature hike or something!

Leah has always been an indoor cat. She’s been out on our deck over the years, but I’m not sure her paws ever touched grass before. Since we have a high fence up she couldn’t in a million years jump if she tried, we’ve been letting her out in the back yard. It’s more like she’s demanded to go out there. I like that she can enjoy some time out there, but we need to be careful to make sure she doesn’t eat the grass as it makes cats throw up. Mark had to clean up that little science fact after she returned from this trip in the wild outdoors.

I have no idea what this expression is about! Notice Leah in the background eating grass.

Noah hasn’t spent a lot of time outside without being held by someone, but now that I’m pretty confident he’ll catch himself if he falls and won’t bust his head open on the concrete, I’ve started letting him down to explore. He got so dirty after this that he was immediately put into a bath. I guess we could put down a big blanket to help prevent him from getting so dirty, but I know he won’t stay on it. Sometimes I wish I weren’t so freaked out by my kids getting messy, but dirt all over his legs and outfit really bugs me!

Me, reflected in our back door.

I’ve probably mentioned this numerous times, but I’m so excited to be back into Project 365 and taking daily photos again. I’m also excited about this blog, though who knows how long it will last this time. I always seem to wind back up at LiveJournal when I start publicly posting personal details. It’s hard to get back into public blogging after several years of being gone from the “scene”. Most people I know who blog have ads or sponsored reviews or are otherwise being paid to do so. I’m hoping I’ll be able to hide behind my photos if I feel like retreating instead of giving up the blog altogether.

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