Here it is Sunday, Tax Day 2006. Well actually because today is Sunday, most folks get another day to pay their taxes. Sheryl, Meghan and Mathew spent Thursday night through late Saturday afternoon in Milwaukee at Sheryl’s parent’s house. No, I didn’t have any wild parties. I spent the time trying to catch up on the backlog of work which needed to be done. It is amazing how much you can get done without the constant interuptions from the kids. I managed to complete some small repairs around the house, assemble a couple of traditional albums, update my web site and many other small tasks which piled up.

Today I had thought we would take the kids to the zoo. However, it the zoo trip was rained out. Instead, Meghan and I started our garden indoors. We planted some of the seeds in peat pellets which we’ll transplant in a couple of weeks. For some strange reason, Mathew thinks the peat pellets are cookies! If any turn up missing, he’s the first one I’ll suspect!

Well here it is Wednesday evening, hump day is over and I don’t know where the week is going. Monday and Tuesday, I spent working on catching up on somethings around the house and studio. I also managed to finish Jennifer and Stephen’s preliminary album design. Click here to see a slide show of the initial design. Click on the title panel once it appears to start the show. When the show is over, you can click your browser’s back button to return to this page.

Monday evening I had an initial consulation with Christie and Brian. They are planning a June ’07 wedding. The are a neat couple and the three of us hit it off really well. After some thought they realized they didn’t want to take a chance on loosing me to somebody else, so they booked me as their wedding photographer. It is a good thing they did because the next day, somebody else called and wanted to book me for the same day. They are going to have a great wedding and I’m honored they selected me as their photographer.

Today, I went to the monthly meeting of one of the local professional photography associations I belong to. This is a combination networking, tradeshow and most importantly, continuing education. The speaker, and I kid you not, was named Fuzzy Deunkle. He photographs high school seniors in West Bend Wi. Even though he doesn’t photograph weddings, there is always a new idea or perspective I get from seeing how other photographers work in other segments of the industry. Today’s speaker was no different. Now I can’t wait for my next wedding or engagement session!

Suddenly humpday is over and now we are already looking forward to another weekend.

How can April 1st pass without a prank or two? This year my target(s) were my follow photographers on Gary Fongs Digital Photogapher’s Net, DPN. I figured out how create a userid that looked like Gary Fong’s but I controlled it. I used the userid to post a thread in which Gary purportedly announced his marriage. I watched the thread all day long as first the mayhem started and then some folks realized the game was a foot! At the end of the day, I let everybody know it was a joke and signed my name.

After brunch on Saturday, my family gathered to give me my birthday cards and gifts. My wife got me the new Harry Potter movie “…Goblet of Fire.” Not sure when I will be able to sit down and watch the movie but at least I have it. Both kids had made cards and were chomping at the bit to blow out my birthday candles. To them if you can’t open the presents then next best thing is eating the cake.

Later that afternoon, Meghan and I actually got out to the garden and put down the weed barrier. I guess I should say, I put it down and she “helped” by digging up a mud pie factory. Part way through, we had to run to Wal-Mart to get more barrier. We were quite a sight, covered in mud/dirt as we walked through the store. Finally we got the job done. She wanted to start planting the seeds but we have to wait a couple of weeks until the threat of frost is gone.

Then I went to the side of the house to trim the grapevines. This is my annual attempt to kill them off. We’ll see how well they survive this year. While I was working on the side of the house, Meghan was riding her bike. She is finally getting the hang of it. She wanted me to remove the training wheels. I’ll raise them and see how she does.

All to soon, it was time to clean up and get ready for dinner. Sheryl took me out to Shaw’s Crab House for my birthday dinner. The food was scrumptious. We started with the Shrimp Cocktail and ate our way through several courses to finish with the Banana’s Foster and Creme Brule. Next we took in Ice Age 2.

The movie was entertaining and funny. It was so fast paced, I never looked at my watch to see what time it was. After the movie, Sheryl and I took a walk around the Streets of Woodfield. It is so rare for us to get some time to ourselves and talk that the walk was a real treat. Finally, it was time to head home and off to bed. A very busy birthday indeed.

Today, Meghan, my 5 year-old daughter, and I were supposed to get the vegetable garden ready for planting. Unfortunately, it rained. When we bought this house 8 years ago, the previous owners had a real green thumb. Since then, I’ve managed to kill off much of the much of the gardens. It takes real talent to kill of wild raspberries! However, the grapevines on the side of the house and the apple trees continue to survive my best efforts.

Several years ago, I planted a corn patch. It was actually somewhat of a success. That is if after all the time and hard work we managed to eat 5 ears of corn. I was so looking forward to finishing the season with the pick of the harvest. There was one ear of corn which had grown bigger than any of the others. I could taste the sweet corn. But I decided to wait one more day before picking that ear.

All the next day, I was looking forward to my ear of corn. I could taste it. The corn was so sweet we didn’t need to add anything to them before eating it. Finally, it was time to start dinner. I started the water boiling. I opened the door to the backyard and started the walk to the garden.

As I rounded the corner, I saw a squirrel sitting on the fence eating an ear of corn. MY EAR OF CORN! I swear to you that squirrel started laughing at me or was it thanking me for growing such a nice dinner. Dejectedly, I found another ear or two of corn in the garden but, they just weren’t the same.

Anyway, in kindergarten, Meghan was learning about how plants grow from seeds. She’s planted a couple of small plants which have died in our window sill. So I’m not sure what made me agree to plant a vegetable garden this year. Maybe it is the mud patch where the garden goes. Or maybe it was the memory of the sweet corn. Somehow corn that you’ve grown yourself tastes the sweetest. Or maybe there are some lessons Meghan and Mathew will learn as we work our garden together. Hopefully Saturday will be nicer and we can start our garden preparations.