31 - Hottie

WooHoo! One month down! So happy I managed to do it. To celebrate, I am posting a pic of Mr. Incredible.

30 - Yard Work

Today the sun broke through, the clouds cleared away, and the angels sang. It was the first day in weeks that it really was nice enough to get some much needed yard work done. Our back yard was a MESS! Many days of snow/rain/fog/sleet made for some serious nastiness. Mr. Incredible and #2 got out the manly tools, and got to it. So here (because you have ALWAYS wanted to know this process) is how our yard gets cleaned up.

First, Mr. Incredible gets out a blowy thing and gets all the leaves away from the fence...

keep going

get all those suckers

but always take time out to enjoy the scenery!

I know - I am one lucky girl!  ANYWAY...You also have to find a sucker kid to suck all the leaves up. He must be big enough to start the monstrosity...

Then he gets to work sucking up all the leaves.

Soon the bag is full and you must throw it over the fence,

(There's the hottie again!) Run around and throw it over your sholder

Drag it up into the woods

and spread it all around (Dad will not be happy if it just gets piled!)

And, voilla, you have a nice clean yard....well after you threaten, beg, torture and promise good things to eat to #'s 1 and 3 to get all the trash and dog biscuits picked up :0)

29 - Mom's Camera

My mom is letting me use her backup camera for awhile and I am LOVING it. I spent the afternoon shooting birds out my kitchen window and am amazed with the results. So here is one for another 365er Lisa in Alaska in reponse to her hateful Red Sox comment, LOL.

28 - Rock My World!

This morning I was up at 3:30, for no reason other than I do that sometimes. So I used my time to get a little more familiar with Photoshop. I learned layers and MAN do they rock my world!!! I did get some shots in today, but mostly I have been playing in PSE. Here is a few before and after shots...

This is the father of a good friend of mine. I could have played with it some more, but really, the the boys insist on having all three meals today...go figure!

Now, obviously I did not take this shot, #3 did, but I love it and wanted to see what I could do in black and white....I honestly wouldn't change a thing at this point, what do you think?

27 - Some Times You Can't Fix...

Fill in the blank. Here is my dear middle son, aka #2, as he walked up from the bus stop...

Yes, it is snowing again, and he thinks he is ultra cool, but why would that inspire the title of this post? Because THIS is the rest of the story...

I swear a good HALF of my beautifully covered gray hair comes from this child!

26 - You Are My Sunshine

After months and months, okay, maybe just weeks, of nothing but fog, mist, rain, gray, BLEH sky...today we have seen bits and pieces of THIS....

GLORY GLORY - I almost forgot what that looked like!

25 - After School

This is what we do after school. I thought this year would be hard with the boys going to three different schools, but actually it has worked out beautifully. #2 gets home first and we have about 30min to do his homework together. I have to go pick up #1 from practice after that and we get about 30min to spend going over his day and what he needs to get done. Then #3 is hopping off the bus and I have about 30 min to spend doing homework with him. Yes, sometimes they overlap, but overall I get to have 30 each day with each one of my monsters all by themselves.....I am blessed.

If you finish homework early, then you get to use the rest of your time reading any book you want. #2 finally discovered graphic novels and LOVES them....YEAH!

24 - Where Did You Go?

Busy weekend, so just another snapshot. My poor Lucy-Fur wants to go play with the birds on the deck but they keep flying away on her.

23 - BLEH!

So, so, so, so, SOOOOOOOOO tired of the gloomy weather. This looking up the street, seriously in all my years of living here, I have NEVER seen fog like this.

22 - 26 Days

26 days until Pitchers and Catchers report to Spring Training...otherwise known as "Spring is on it's way" day....YAHOO!

21 - The Beginning

My mom gave me the beginning of my camera fund today. It was AWESOME to go to the bank and actually open an account to make my dream a reality. So today's pic is just a snapshot, but THIS is something I want to remember.

(P.S. - ignore the chipped fingernail polish, haven't had time to fix it)

20 - Forks

Today is day 3 of this gloomy fog that has decided to take over the area. I do not, repeat NOT live in Forks for cryin out loud! Couldn't decide if I liked this shot in color (can see the fog better) or in B&W (gloomy), meh, you decide. It was taken out the window from my office.

19 - Friends of a Feather

Not the sharpest picture - I wonder when my calendar will have me cleaning my kitchen windows?

18 - Shutter Speed

Not very inspired today as I messed around with shutter speed and working on getting that "warm glow" feeling from a candle.

17 - Feed the Dogs

The phrase that pays around this house for my girls is "Can you feed the dogs?" They know this phrase AND can spell f-e-d the d-o-gs. Some day I might post a video of the excitement and jubilation that happens when this phrase is uttered. This is the last shot in my macro series, not sure what next week will bring.

16 - Show Me the Money

Day 6 of macro - I can see where I could be totally addicted to it, but I am frustrated with my camera. I will do one more tomorrow, just so I can say I got through a week, but until I can do flowers I probably won't be visiting this again for awhile.

15 - Ham and Egg

It is Friday, you know what that means...DATE NIGHT! More often than not, since the boys have been old enough to stay home by themselves, Friday is DATE NIGHT for the hottie honey and I. (and yes, it is DATE NIGHT with all caps, they are THAT awesome!) Are you ready for awesomeness at the max? Here is the hottie I get to go out with on Fridays...

Now for all you ladies that just swooned, sorry but he wears one of these....

and I am the lucky gal that gave it to him! (this is my macro shot by the way)

Now some DATE NIGHTS are pretty fancy...nice restaurant, movie or quaint pub with a small band, you know standard date fare. Some DATE NIGHTS are goofy...bowling, driving range, putt putt golf, go karts, the "bring out the kid in you" kind. Then sometimes...SOMETIMES...DATE NIGHT is low key, little restaurant, rented movies, xbox, cuddle in front of the fire, we just made the house payment, baseball fees, medical bills, it's cold outside, I just want to be by you kind. Tonight was the later. Even when it is the low cost, I mean low key kind, we still try to find new places to go. Tonight we ran across this place by total accident...

With a name like Ham n' Egg, you can bet you can throw the Weight Watchers points out the window! I really was not feeling hungry, but the Honey got this...

It is called the Meat Lovers Skillet. It SHOULD be called "We just slaughtered a pig and threw the whole thing on a plate with as much butter as health code will let us, have you paid your life insurance because the likelihood of you eating this with your heart still pumping is unlikely skillet". It has A LOT of meat, lots and lots and

LOTS of meat. Did I mention the meat? We are talking ham, sausage, and bacon. And just look at the glimmering greasiness. Can anyone say Heart Attack?

Yes, he did manage to finish it, and thankfully he is still alive. DATE NIGHT was a success, we had a great time, good conversation and now the fire and comfy couch calls my name.

14 - I Always Feel Like....

Somebody's watching me...day four of macro, and the eyes have it. After begging, pleading, and promising to make yummy bad-for-you stuff, I got all three monsters to stand still to get photos of their eyes.

My very handsome #1 - doesn't he have the most amazing blue eyes?

The misceivious #2 - can you tell he was sticking out his tongue?

The very sweet #3 - those big brown eyes get him out of more trouble than I care to admit!

and finally - Me - I took this in the mirror, good grief I am looking OLD!

Nope - no pic of the hottie honey, that's okay, if I showed you a pic of his eyes, it would make you swoon at the wonderousness of them!

I think I have found the ends of my poor little camera's abilities when it comes to macro...I have tweeked, adjusted, stood sideways, and begged, but this is just as close as I am getting to a subject - it's all good, over-all, I would say that for a P&S it has done a pretty good job with this challenge. Only three more days of macro to go...I will miss it, but am ready to move on as it is making me "need" a better camera that I just can't afford right now.

13 - Lids and a Light

Today the chore calendar had me organizing one clutter spot. OH where to start, there are so many to choose from in my house. I also had to clean out a kitchen drawer, so while I was in there, I decided to tackle a much neglected space.....the container cabinet. This is a mysterious space where containers go and disappear to live with unmatched sock mates. They don't like the lids, so they just abandon them to the cold harsh reality of living alone, in a cabinet, with no one to cover....let's take a moment of silence for the poor lids. Yeah, that's long enough. Since we remodeled our kitchen a few years ago, well maybe more than a few....let's just say when we remodeled, this one....

was a baby. ANYWAY, since we remodeled, I haven't so much as touched this cabinet except to throw more lids in, so off to clean it I did. Here is how it started...

notice, ONE container.....MANY lids (poor lids)

many, MANY lids (poor lids)
so to put them out of their misery, I did this...

(poor lids, it was nice knowing you, the eulogy was moving)

Then I.....CLEANED.THE.CABINET.WITH.CLEANER.

After that it looked like this...

(that sound you just heard was my mother gasping and my dear grandmother rolling in her grave to see a cabinet without shelf liner. I'm a rebel, what can I say)

so pretty! Then, I went and got some brand spankin new containers with brand stinkin new lids and had a covenant marriage ceremony with them so that they would be bound together. I also discovered that I now have a place to put all my dish towels, a MUCH better place than my counter! If I were a REAL domestic goddess, I would have made, found, garage-saled a cute basket to put them in....but I'm not....I'm okay with that.....really....well, mostly. And now, NOW it looks like this...

TADA! Clutter spot done....CHECKMARK!

And because I am supposed to be having macro week, here is a shot from Girls Night last night at a fabulous little pub, McGurks...

12 - Throne

Day three of macro and oh what fun! Shutterboo has weekly subjects and this week was.......wait for it......take a deep breath.....THE TOILET! HEE HEE HEE! (You can find her challenges here.) Kind of appropriate seeing as how this was a view I had all day Friday and most of the day Saturday. (Makin' lemonade out of those lemons people, makin' lemonade.) Thankfully yesterday was clean the throne day so it was still nice and sparkly for it's photo shoot. In the last one it would have been so much better if I had nice new shiny faucets so that you could tell that the ring around the ring is the lens of my camera.

11 - Checkmark!

Day two of macro week. I love, love L.O.V.E. this chore calendar that I downloaded from here. I am not a domestic goddess and so any bit of help I get is appreciated. This breaks down house chores into a few tasks everyday and by the end of the week your house is maintained. I love that it breaks down the bathroom into a few steps everyday. I love that I don't have to stress about when the last time I mopped was. I love that it adds quiet time as a chore. And I LOVE all these fantastic checkmarks!

10 - Come On Baby Light My Fire

Yahoo! I am mostly back on my feet, still not up to eating too much, but really...that's okay. I have been looking at Michelle's great macro work here and have been inspired to give it a go this week. I also loved Laura's fire pics here, so as I was standing in the kitchen with #3 making bread this afternoon, I decided to get some shots of the candle on the counter. Just about the time I was ready to give up getting a good shot with the ol' point and shoot, I got these - not perfect, but really not bad for this camera. Anyone with a p&s got any tips for "forcing" a focus?