November 01, 2009

What fun...

The last couple of weeks have not been fun at hour house. Jackson got sick with the swine Flu. And just as Jackson hit rock bottom, Heather and I started down. Then I just ended up with bronchitis not two weeks later.

The highlight was Saturday night. One, the kids did all my work of gathering candy so I would have something to snack on. Two. I got to meet Ree - The Pioneer Woman at a book signing in her little town a mere 30 minutes away.

As it turns out, I've already known her (I say that loosely) for a while before Cathy Zielske's web page led me to Ree's. I used to work at the hospital in the town I live in, which is Ree grew up; just 50 miles from her ranch. Her brother Mike worked there and he would talk about his sister Ree. It finally hit me one time when I was reading her blog and she was talking about her brother. I thought that the person she was describing was the Mike I knew from the hospital. Lo and behold, she was.

Then. Jackson used to go to school with a boy at his old school who is now on his swim team. His mom, Vanessa and Heather are friends. Vanessa has an email address that is tied to her husband's business. Now I knew Vanessa's husband was in the cattle business, but there again was able to put 2 and 2 together. Just funny that way.


I snapped the above picture with my iPhone. I didn't notice then that she had her camera right there on the table.





So I waited in line and snapped the two pictures above. I changed the one to black and white using her actions. Not that she didn't look nice, but the B&W looks really good.

So when it was my turn, I took my books up to her and she was very nice. I told her about I knew Mike and Vanessa. She did think that it was funny that we could not get more than 2 degrees away (the whole 6 degrees of separation thing). I noticed her Nikon D3 on the table and commented on it. She then said "Oh, pick it up and shoot a few frames and see what you think." She then commented on my "old" Nikon D70 (which is what her first digital SLR was) and said that it is a great camera.

All in all, it was well worth making the little hop over there.