delicate.

Delicate. Fragile. Endearing. Subtle. Dreamy. Wistful.

This photo brings all of these words to mind for me. It also makes me think about lately I just haven't had the energy to write. It could be the lack of sunshine or the fact that I am not one for just slapping together a post without giving it some thought.

Quality is better than quantity.

The only thing that differs in the blogosphere is that your fans/followers expect a certain amount of product. I know in the past few months I haven't been giving it everything that I could. I am a little distracted & I will reveal my distractions soon enough. The multiple distractions in our lives in the past two months have required a lot more time and effort than I had originally intended. All good things though.

If only the race to the finish line was in sight. I sometimes wonder if we ever get a glimpse of the finish line in life. Every year about this time I start to reflect on the past year. This year, bar-none has gone by faster than any other year I have lived. I thought by now things would have slowed down a little. Boy, was I wrong. I have started to accept that once one thing slows down another one begins. If for nothing else, one can never grow bored. It also, as of late, also seems that one can never rest to catch their breath.

This brings me back to the photo above. I find it quite tranquil. It's simple, yet you cannot stop looking into the distance (the first exposure). And this, is what we all do day after day... look ahead to the distance to see what lies ahead.

If you are still following our lamentably sporadic posts, what do you do to stay focused on the future without being overwhelmed? :)

Black & White

...The road is long

the memory slides

to the whole of my undoing

put aside

I put away

I push it back to get through each day

and all I feel is black and white

and I'm wound up small and tight

and I don't know who I am ...

~Sarah McLachlan, Black & White

It's a black & white kind of day. Not sure why, but it is.

We took this photo this summer on a camping trip. You can hardly tell from the photo what time of year it is. Maybe that's one reason why I like black and white photos so much -- there is a real timeless quality to them. One that you don't always get with color.

Looking down.

Forehead pressed against hot vinyl.

Sun blazing its summer heat.

Cool views from down below.

We just wanted to be swimming with the fishes.

Instead we watch, we watch, we watch.

Home improvements

Sunday, normally a day of rest, was re-organize day at the ampm household. We've been meaning to get a second dresser now for quite some time. I'm not sure what was holding us back - it certainly wasn't our sanity. We got a new dresser yesterday and have spent the better part of today setting it up and organizing our living space.

The results -- a much more homey living space. We moved a "junk" table to the kitchen to remove the card table. We switched also switched around our desks. [pm has been wanting to rid our place as of late of all "college-type" decor. The card table fit this bill, as did the built-it-yourself wire shelving.]

I'm starting to feel like a real adult now. No more hodge-podge furniture. (Okay, I lied. We still have it, but it works. Yes, I swear it does.).

I think our place is slightly more sophisticated, but still unique. We still have to declutter of lives some, but at least we are in a step in the right direction.

+Like the Pritzker Auditorium super sampler photo? This photo totally works in our space. It's a nice reminder for us that we live in this city. Sometimes it is easy to forget when you spend the better part of the weekend on home improvements and connecting with old friends.

All in all (despite the heat and no a.c.) it was a SUPERB weekend.

30 Days of Creativity - Day 30: Mission Completed!

First off, let me just say that being creative for 30 straight days has been a challenge. We have certainly enjoyed participated in a community effort and getting new inspirations and ideas from others. This is something that we will continue to do.

We've come to realize that it's not too hard to do at least one thing creative a day. The hard part comes with finding the motivation to post something about it. This is where the daily challenge has presented itself. Sometimes all you want to do after a day of work is relax. This is not to say that it is that hard to take some time to take pictures and write.

I've learned that I need to be better at dedicating time everyday to being creative. This involves keeping my eyes and ears open and to invite the opportunity to learn and try new things.

Hope that this challenge is only the beginning of our creative journey. (With that said: We may take a short break from posting daily. We'd like to establish a schedule we can stick to.)

So here is our last contribution, we just got the film from yesterday's photo walk (we'll post some more as soon as I scan them)

Peace, Love and Happiness. Congrats for being a dedicated creative for 30 straight days!

30 Days of Creativity - Day 16: Millennium Park

Today we spent the evening taking pictures while walking around Millennium Park, which is a pretty miserable place during winter but also an awesome place during summer. We enjoyed watching little children playing in the Crown Fountain and the live music at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion.

We will be posting more pictures from our Supersampler as soon as we scan them, Walgreens rarely does a good job scanning film from it and most of the pictures are not framed correctly :P. We have a couple more photography projects on the works that will be sharing with you soon, so stay tuned!