Catching Up!

I'm catching up for two days of not posting. Yesterday we had kind of a strange combination of activities. First we went to a funeral and then to a movie. The movie was Taken and was a very good movie. I usually don't care for action movies but this one was really good.

The photo above was what I had planned to post yesterday but I waited until it was too dark to photograph. So I guess this is really yesterday's post photographed today. This is our beautiful yellow jasmine and it is in full bloom and so wonderful. We are having strange weather. This jasmine usually doesn't bloom this early but we have been having off and on spring/winter weather lately. We had spring-like weather yesterday with tornado watches and warnings everywhere and now they say it may snow tomorrow!

I have no photo for today's activities but I am cooking, cooking, cooking. I am taking food to some elderly people in our church - one man had triple bypass heart surgery and his wife had nerve conduction tests and another lady broke her ankle on both sides and is in a wheelchair. Also, part of the food I will take to my mother and brother who will be together tomorrow as I am going to a Scrap Therapy class at my local quilt shop after church around 2 in the afternoon. You just take a big bag of scrap fabrics that you don't know what to do with along with a cutting mat, rotary cutter, and a long and square ruler and cut away for 2 or 3 hrs. When we leave, we should have bags of shapes for quilts already cut. I really don't know what to expect but I think it will be good "therapy" after all the other activities lately. So. . . back to my cooking!

Post for February 27th

What I wanted to post for this blog yesterday is pictured above. I am a couple of days behind in my posting on this blog! I just never had the time to get on the computer to post.

Yesterday I visited Barnes & Noble in the graphic novel section (by suggestion of a fellow blogger) and had the best time. I never knew there was such a genre in literature. I am told it is fairly new. I only had a few minutes to look around and the salesman took me back to the children's literature which is how I ended up with this cute little book.

The reason I was so interested in this is because of the illustrations in these books. They are wonderful, although I will say that from the short period of time I had to look, the adult books looked mostly violent to me which does NOT appeal to me. There were John Patterson and Dean Koontz books, for example, in this section which just blew me away. I had no idea and I go to bookstores all the time. Guess I need to be more observant!

The Manga section was very interesting and the illustrations were wonderful. The faces are more angular, almost triangular-shaped, for instance. Also you read the Manga books from back to front which is very interesting. I may go back and choose a Manga book to have but for right now, I will enjoy this little 3rd grade-level book. It's very cute. I will enjoy it and so will my granddaughter.

I have no photo to post for today because what I wanted to post could not be photographed in the dark! ha! This was a very busy day, too. I just need to catch up!

Trip to the Dentist

I went to the dentist today to get a cavity filled. I got pain and suffering (just kidding!). What did Paw Paw & Paige get? Stickers, stickers, and more stickers plus gum and cute little toothbrushes and a bracelet and all kinds of goodies. Look who's wearing the stickers! I got one, too!

A Surprise Package in the Mail!

Got a surprise package in the mail today. If you want to know what it is, go here! I just love it!

A Cat in the Sink

Here is one of our cats who loves to sit in sinks. ha! I can see things I did right in this photo and things I did wrong. She moved as I took it so she's pretty blurry but the rest of the photo is blurry some, too, so I probably should have used a tripod. I haven't gotten that thing out yet! ha! I set my camera manually and didn't use a flash (adjusted my white balance to tungsten instead) so I like the color and the fact that her eyes are not "glow in the dark". Her eyes are the beautiful color that they really are. Perhaps some of it was camera shake because I was nervous that she was going to jump out of the sink before I could get the shot.

Our Day

Here is part of what I did today - eat Valentine candy corn and watch a movie! ha! I did work some on one of my "secret" projects, too and tried to "fix" those towels (see a couple or three posts below). But. . .

THIS is what my little sneak of a husband did. . . they are building a house for the TV show Extreme Makeover in a subdivision just a few miles from where we live and he "snuck" in and got some pics. There are signs all over that say to stay out but he got behind the bus that takes workers in and out, then parked somewhere and walked to the house! What a little sneak! ha! He called me and told me about it as he was coming home and was so excited. I asked him if he saw Ty Pennington and he said no, but he got some pics of a girl he thought was on there. When I asked what she looked like (because I have watched it a few times and I think I remember the girl pictured above as one of the designers in the show), he said she had long, dark hair! Girls, don't ever trust men's descriptions of people!

Here's the house. They are "moving the bus" on Monday, I think. After it's all over, I'll probably ride over there and look at it. This house is huge compared to all the other homes in this subdivision. Interesting.

An Emotional Day

This is my photo for the day - the Humane Shelter for animals in our area. I had a task to do here today that I really dreaded but knew I had to do. I had to take my mother's 13 yr. old cat here to see if they could keep her and try to find her a home. I was worried about the cat and my mother. But the cat has been chewing holes in my mother's oxygen tubes for a long time and it came down to my mother's health being jeopardized and finding a new home for the cat. My mother finally agreed to send her to the Humane Shelter.

But all was well today. My mother seemed to be fine with it when I left and afterwards, when I called to see how she was doing. The cat, also, was very receptive to the young people who took her in - in fact, she was very loving. I feel so much better about this problem now and hope that my mother's health will improve because of this necessary step we took today. *BIG SIGH*

A Spa Gift

This project is how I spent a lot of my day because I'm not that experienced in monogramming. I gave my oldest daughter towels for Christmas that she wanted but got the color wrong and, thank goodness, I hadn't monogrammed them because of being sick. So I was able to swap to white and monogrammed them today. Now I will mail them to her in Nashville - sorry they're so late. They look ok and I know it's difficult to tell from this photo (unless you click and look closer) but I really am not completely satisfied with the way the thread covered. I'm going to take them by my sewing shop tomorrow and ask them why the satin stitch on my monogramming is not denser. Also, my projects that need to be hooped take longer because it takes me so long to hoop correctly. I know that practice makes perfect and I just need to do it more. This was a good exercise in both hooping and centering for me. I can't wait to find out what I can do to improve the density.

The Abstract Again

Since I had no time to post a new photo today and I committed to post one every day of this year *sigh*, I decided to bring this one back up. No one tried to guess what this is but, surprisingly (to me), it is aluminum foil placed on a pan. The pink comes from Paige's pjs reflecting on it. She was sitting on the counter beside it. It looks much softer than aluminum foil to me. It looks like fabric. I played around with the color a little.

The End of a Beautiful Day

Tired. Long but beautiful day :)

An Abstract

Big Day. Tired. Just thought I'd try an abstract. Can you guess what this is?

You Name It!

I spent most of the day with my mother today. As I was driving home, I just had a feeling that my husband had displayed the sign I gave him for Valentine's Day and I was right! I love it! I had my camera with me and as soon as I drove up, I grabbed it, made the settings and snapped about 5 or 6 pics. I love this one because our dog, Farley, positioned himself underneath the sign. As I was posting this, I just could not think of a title so I thought I'd let you fellow bloggers and followers of blogs that read this help me title this blog. It's so cute and fitting for Farley to be underneath the sign with that look on his face but I just could not think of a cute title. Maybe you can? Ideas?

Happy Valentine's Day!

My husband and I agreed beforehand to only swap cards for Valentine's Day but we both broke our promise! ha! He got me a card plus a HUGE Hershey's Kiss and I saw this sign in the photo above and just couldn't resist. He liked it, too, and it will not stay on the desk. We are going to attach it to our chainlink fence near the front gate where everyone comes in. I am still manually operating my camera except for the auto focus.

Hope everyone had a Happy Valentine's Day!

A Day With My Mother

I spent the day mostly with my mother today. The above photo is a house in her neighborhood across the street from her. I thought this was an unusual way to decorate for Valentine's Day and I like it so much that I just had to photograph it. I think it's crepe paper but not sure. Don't you love all those colors just flying around in the breeze?

My mother and I decided to go out to eat at Chick fil A before we went to get haircuts. My daughter and Paige met us and the candy and balloon were from them.

She had a wonderful outing with us and we celebrated Valentine's Day a day early.

A Valentine Party!

Another babysitting day and we're headed to Mothers' Day Out for a Valentine party! We've just arrived here. Look at those eyes!!

Look how excited! Her mother appliqued her valentine turtle shirt. How cute!

How sweet to pose for me. It was a great party.

More White Balance Results

Today was another babysitting day so we met with a 3rd cousin and her grandmother at Chick Fil A to let them play, eat and spend some time together. This top pic was too blue, had the white balance set wrong.

Here I got the white balance correct.

And here again. They play so well together and had a great time.

Trip to Library

Today was a babysitting today and we went for a little trip to the local library. I had my camera with me and I feel like I kind of "fine-tuned" a little bit with white balance even those these aren't great shots or anything. I am learning that I need to be observant about SO many things which I manually operate my camera. This top photo of Paige and Ms. Sandra, the librarian, I snapped about 3 or 4 times. After the first one, I noticed a bluish tint to it so I automatically checked my white balance and it was set for daylight from photographing the motorcycle guy outside yesterday. So I switched it to tungsten light and it still looked blue. Then I looked up at the lights and realized (duh!) that they were fluorescent lights so I changed the white balance again to fluorescent and got the correct results in coloring below.

Just a Random Act

I was out doing some things today and eating lunch in my truck at Chick Fil A when this cute guy zipped in on his Kawasaki Ninja to the left of me. He got off, took his helmet off and I saw that red and black hair and said to myself, "oh my gosh, I've got to have a picture of this!" A red bike, red, black and silver helmet and jacket and red and black hair! So I sat there debating whether to go inside and ask him if I could photograph him with his bike while I was finishing eating and decided, YES, YES, I will go ask him!

So I went inside and saw him choosing his condiments (ha!) and just walked up to him and told him I was learning photography and asked if he would pose for a photo for me outside with his bike. He said, "sure". We went outside and I noticed he had the most beautiful blue eyes, too, which added to all this coloring. I did a couple of poses, told him what I wanted, gave him a big hug and said thanks and left. It was cool!

When I got home and looked at the photos on my TV, I noticed a big difference in the two photos and see why a photographer needs to be very careful in composing and really looking at what you see thru your camera. I was kind of nervous because I'd never approached a stranger like this before so you'll notice in the top photo, there are street lights above his head that look like antennae coming out of the top of his head! Please click on the photo and take a closer look! (Of course, if I had Photoshop or some sort of program like that, I guess I could remove them but I haven't gotten that far yet *sigh*. All in all, it was a great experience. (I did take my little program I do have on the computer and bumped up the blue sky some in the bottom photo.)

A Fun Search

Back during Christmas, I was searching through catalogs and saw a very cute idea. Photographs were taken of architectural forms that resembled letters of the alphabet and the alphabet letters were framed for family names, each letter being separately matted.

Since that time, I have been looking around for "letters" in nature or architecture. Since I live in the country and am mostly here, I've found a few places and things to photograph that have that possibility.

In these photographs, I can see the possibility of an x, v, and o. With some cropping, enlarging, playing around a little (maybe change to B & W or Sepia), and matting and framing, I thought these photos had some possibility.

Of course, I'm playing around with white balance still and got the blue going on in some of them but I just like that so much! I haven't changed any to B & W or Sepia but I will and see what I like.

So in addition to going back to the bike photos with different lens lengths (now that the cold weather is gone at least for a while), I will be on a fun search for letters of the alphabet everywhere I go and try to always have my camera with me when I travel anywhere.

I'm also thinking of possibilities in older photographs, especially from our trip to London back in 1998! But those are not digital and guess I'll have to learn what to do to get them digitally on my computer. If anyone has expertise in this, I would appreciate the info. But, if not, I will continue to read, search and learn on my own.

These photos were taken of our pond in our front yard, fences in the neighborhood, and a feeding trough for horses.

I just love the blue!

I can see v and x here with some cropping.

I like the red and blue together. Wonder how it would look in B & W? Will have to try that! Hope you enjoyed the little mini-tour of just a corner of our neighborhood!

Button, Button, Who's Got the Button?

This is how much fun we had today with buttons while Mommy and BearBear were sewing!! BearBear told Mommy she wished that Paige-ee-Poo could sort all the buttons into color groups and then put them in the containers I bought to do that! ha! But what a good time was had by all and everyone chipped in to clean up.

Moi!

I love taking photos but hate to have mine taken. So why are you posting a photo of you on your blog, you say? I'll tell you why. I had a dental appointment today and after I finished getting dressed, my husband made the comment to me that I looked "nice" :) He hasn't made that comment to me in a long, long time! So I decided if he thought I looked nice, I'd put my photo on this blog. I guess he was so used to seeing me in old flannel pajama pants, a Tshirt and houseshoes with no make-up, etc. from being sick for so long that I did look "nice"! ha!

Also, I've seen so many blogs in which the bloggers photographed themselves with their cameras and wondered, "how do they do that?" One day it hit me! They're doing it looking in a mirror with no flash! Or at least I think that's what they're doing. So I decided to experiment around and give it a try and I think that's how they do it? duh? Am I right?
It's not too bad of a photograph. I may even use it as a profile photo on FB!

An Exciting Shot for Me!

I didn't post the last two days (I hate it because I was committed to post a photo every day of the year on this blog in 2009) but I was just too tired.

Today as I was coming home around 3:30 in the afternoon, I got this shot of the moon in daylight hours with my telephoto lens. I cropped it and probably "over-cropped" it, but you can click on the photo and actually see the craters!

The first shot was not as blue so I checked my white balance and changed it from daylight to tungsten and that made it this blue. I like the effect. It's just fun to experiment with photography.

My Nest

Just a photo of my nest. This is where I go when I have down time. I got some today and am trying to finish my library book. It's due Friday.

I did set my aperture and shutter speed manually, adjust my white balance to indoor tungsten lighting, and used no flash but automatic focus. Then I lightened it up on the computer. I do feel comfortable with the manual settings now and need to study and challenge my self one step further.

Photographing a Two-Year Old!

After taking little stinker to church with us today (which, by the way, was wonderful, no problems), I wanted to photograph her with her pillowcase (giraffe) dress I made for her before we changed her clothes. No problem, huh? WRONG!

I started out opening all the shutters for plenty of natural light, put my camera on manual operations and began. These smaller photos are what I got.

I guess she just wasn't in the mood to have her picture made. I left the manual mode and went to automatic with flash. That still didn't work.

She had already taken her hair down and her hair was all in her face. So I had a tough time getting an angle where you could see her face, too.

I switched from the wide angle lens to the telephoto lens thinking she will forget that I'm snapping away and that didn't work. She still was aware I was around with that camera! ha!

Things just went to bad to worse.

The girl just moves too fast. I even put it on the sports mode and that didn't work!

This one was not "too" bad.

Look at THIS!

You can see the dress a little here but no face.

Almost a complete blur!

Blue, blue, blue - white balance was off.

Decided to switch subjects and got a silhouette.

This was not too bad.

Eyes closed here but these last two were as good as it got today so I called it a day!