I’ve been invited to join Bonnie and some other local Flickrites for several Sandy Eggo Photo Parties (say it out loud, it’ll make sense) over the past year, and this one was the first time I wasn’t out of town or hosting out-of-town guests. It was actually a 7 Days/Photo Party mash-up this time. The Day 2 theme is WRITING, and Katie found this perfect “Open 7 Days” sign on a hair salon. So me, Bonnie, Katie & Summer stood there with our cameras taking a million photos of our reflections and freaking out all the people inside. It was fun. (Yes, I am really in that photo. I’m hard to see but I’m there. Click on the photo to go to Flickr and see the notes on it.)

Usually at the photo parties each photographer picks a theme. Today, Annalie assigned everyone colors. I got yellow. Annalie gave herself green, which led to a very serendipitous 7 Days shot on her part:

Not only did she get her color, she accidentally got a self-portrait that worked with the Day 2 theme. Pretty freakin’ cool, no?

This was the first group shot we did for 7 Days. There’s graffiti all over the chairs we’re sitting in, but you really can’t see it so that didn’t work very well for the theme. Plus that one with the sign was just too cool not to use. But this did work as our Day 66 photo for Troy.

When we were taking that group shot, we all had our cameras lined up on the ground across the parking lot. It made perfect sense to all of us, but I’m sure there were some passers-by shooting us funny looks. Honestly, I’ve been doing this self-portrait thing so long I don’t even notice the funny looks anymore. But I did have to laugh when I crossed the parking lot to pick up my camera and review the shots Bonnie had taken using her camera’s remote (she has a Nikon too, so she could take photos with both our cameras at the same time). Bonnie’s expensive camera sitting on the pavement, my coffee and purse abandoned by a parking bumper…we self-portraitists are a strange bunch.

Meanwhile Annalie had fun racing all over the parking lot like a speed demon. By the way, it wasn’t really much of a parking lot. More like a strip of pavement between two buildings that cars occasionally crossed to get to the street behind the building. Really there were way more pedestrians than cars. So it’s not like Annalie was playing in the street unsupervised. Honest.

Can you tell Annalie has mismatched socks on? I guess in this photo it’s not obvious, but one was lavender and the other was white with a Nebraska Cornhuskers logo on it. I guess the red ‘N’ matched the red stripes in her shirt. I did ask if she wanted me to help her find a matching pair of socks, but she said, “No, I like them this way.” I was thinking today that I should really be happy she’s not a slave to fashion yet, because I am sure when that time does come it will be much more annoying to me than going out in public with my child looking like she put on a blindfold before choosing her outfit.

I’ll tell you what I definitely am loving: this drawing kick Annalie is on lately. It’s almost like a compulsion. If she’s sitting still—in the car, watching TV, at a restaurant before the food comes—she is drawing. She’s taken to carrying a small notebook and pen with her all over the place, and if she doesn’t have that she’ll use placemats, the back of a receipt, gum wrappers, napkins, whatever’s handy. Hm, now that I think about it this puts those two markering incidents in a different light. I’ll have to remember that.

“See, Mom? What’d I tell ya? I couldn’t HELP it when I drew on the couch and my clothes! I’ve got a fever and the only cure is MORE DRAWING.”