Photos – Angel Wheeler

Wordless Wednesday: Practicing scales and ar’PURR’gios

October Photo Dump

Anne of Green Gables said, “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”

Me too, Anne.

The colors here are breathtaking. The air is crisp and cool. The smell of fireplaces fill the air.

October is my favorite time of year.

I don’t have too much to say, I just wanted to share some pictures.

We like to walk down by the river and crunch leaves.

Our cat, who thinks she’s a dog, walks beside us.

We throw rocks in the creek.

EK has a cheesy smile these days.

But it’s cute.

It’s the month of costumes. We were asked to dress up as a super hero to help out our library for an event. Ek was batgirl and her little friend was Wonder Woman.

For Halloween, she was Snow White. She had so much fun getting candy.

In three months, she’ll be three years old.

Her hair is nearly to her waist.

Lately I find myself remembering.

Today I looked at pictures and couldn’t help wondering where the time has gone.

I know these days too are fleeting.

Like the changing of the leaves.

I live in a very cool place. Not braggin’ or anything, just stating facts. I have come to really love it here, and why not? I am in the midst of the Creator’s glory. Truly. Mountains, streams, wildflowers, and trees. One of the perks of living in a very cool place is that sometimes I look out my front door and see cool stuff. And sometimes, I see not very cool stuff, like bear trash. Among the cool stuff are two big bucks that came to say hi the other day. If I knew anything at all, I’d be able to tell you what kind of point system these dudes were on. But whatever. Sidenote: I may or may not have a thing for yellow vehicles. So do the deer. Not gonna lie, I was a little bit leery of being this close, with my little EK by my side and all. Those are really some big antlers and I’m not real sure if they would charge, but of course the vision of being gored by deer entered my mind. A reel of every episode of “When Animals Attack” shortly followed. Our cat was very curious too. You can see her photo bomb in the lower right corner of the second picture. Speaking of very cool things: I have a black cat and it’s October!!! October means Halloween! Does anyone else think that’s awesome besides me? No? Well I think it’s very cool. The leaves here are in an array of colors and taking a picture of a black cat in fall leaves is currently on my bucket list. Y’all remember this cat? Isn’t she a beauty? I have come to adore her. It is definitely a ‘she’. And her name is Rocky Muffin. But sometimes EK says, “I changed her into a boy” so then we call ‘him’ Bagheera. As I don’t have a ton of cat experiences, I really have nothing to compare this cat to…..except a dog, and let me tell you, she is just like a dog to the point of jumping in the car to go for rides and following us on our walks. Yesterday, I tried to get some cool pics of ol’ Baggy, but didn’t really succeed. It just so happens, unlike a dog, she doesn’t know how to sit or stay. It’s still a lot green here, mostly because we have some cool season grass, which unlike normal grass, stays green until Spring, then it dies. So there’s more summer than autumn in my pictures. But whatever. I’m not giving up yet, so be on the lookout for more pics of this cat. Maybe shoved in a jack o’ lantern? Maybe being gored by a buck? The possibilities are endless.

One tough camera

For nearly 9 years a disposable camera has been cruising with me in my car. A disposable camera all filled up with mystery pictures of which I can’t remember taking. What? you say. Nine years?!?!?! It’s short of a miracle I know. Never mind that I’ve had a car for 9 years, 12 to be exact, and I’m pretty proud that I’ve had a vehicle for 12 years in this day and age, but the fact that I am so huge of a procrastinator that I haven’t had filmed developed in 9 years is mind-boggling, no?

How many times in the past 9 years have I been to “The Walmarts”? To CVS? To Walgreens?

It is not due to lack of opportunity that I haven’t taken this camera into a photo lab and had it developed. The opportunity presented itself thousands of times, yet there the camera sat, in the little cubby hole underneath the factory stereo with a cassette player. What you say, is a cassette player? Well, boys and girls after 8 tracks they invented this music recorder called a cassette. You had to make sure you always had a pencil handy too when your cassette player ate your tape and you had to wind it back together…….

But I digress…..

This disposable camera has traveled more than 100,000 miles with me. It has toasted in the triple digit Texas heat locked in a car that a poodle wouldn’t last 5 minutes in, and it has froze in the below zero wind chills of winter.

At this point, there is no point in getting it developed. I am sure the film is ruined. But it is one of the cameras we bought for our wedding nearly 9 years ago and curiosity and maybe a bit of motivation got the best of me. Secretly I was hoping there might be a picture of my dad tucked away waiting to be unearthed.

I got a wild hair and took the camera to “The Walmarts” not knowing if they even still developed film the old-fashioned way. I had to ask an associate, a young girl, who looked at me as if my face had gone green, obviously clueless to what I was asking of her, and got an older lady associate to help me find the dillymebob where I drop film off. Using the word dillymebob will often cause people to look at you as if your face has gone green. You should try it.

7-10 days I waited. It’s nothing like 9 years. I actually forgot about it and received a call telling me my film was ready to be picked up.

And there they were. Pictures from 9 years ago. They actually developed if you can believe that. The Panhandle Texas weather aint got nothing on a 35 mm Polaroid disposable camera.

The only wedding pictures happened to be of my sister and I getting our hair fixed for the wedding. The rest were just of life.

Like this one, which I just love. My younger, moustached husband bottle feeding a calf while a sun bleached Ash sits astraddle. The look on her face is priceless.

Here’s my sister, who probably is going to kill me. She’s smiling big, isn’t she pretty? I’m not sure whether she was sun bleached or just bleached, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen her blonde.

My mom who despises getting her picture taken, but in my opinion, there’s just not enough pictures of her floating out there on the internet, and this one is good.

Then there were dune buggy riding, 4 wheeler riding, and ballet dancing pictures as well. Most things I don’t remember even occurring.

I’m glad I have these pictures to remind me.

3 weeks old

Our baby girl is already 3 weeks old, and has completely stolen our hearts.

Instagram Addiction

I recently, very recently, like say Friday, was turned on to Instagram via my friend Suzanne. This weekend I’ve decided I need a 12 step program for it.

You simply can take a photo and run it through various filters to achieve different looks, some retro, some greenish, some reddish, some black and white,and then ooh and aah.

Here’s a sampling of my pictures. I hope they create a sense of wonderfulness for you as they do me.