Photo of the day - 11/30

Today is the day of a couple of "lasts"... It is the last day of the Photo of the Day Challenge. And I can't believe that I DID IT! One photo for every day of the month of November. I'm having so much fun with my camera, that I am planning to continue to post photos as much as I can during the upcoming months. So if you are checking out this blog today, then bookmark it and check each day to see what I've posted. I LOVE reading everyone's comments!!!

Today is also the last time I will see our Christmas tree undecorated. My MIL is now in town so I am going to drag her over here tonight for an old-fashioned, eat pizza, listen to Christmas music and decorate the tree night. For the first time in our adult life, DH and I have family living nearby. And while so many people have said to me, "but it's your Mother in Law". I am really excited to have her in our lives. After college, I moved away from my family. And really it wasn't any big deal living so far from a family member until after I had a child. Then I realized how important extended family is to raising a child. And while I would love to have my family nearby, that's not going to happen. So having my MIL living here is very exciting to all of us.

Off to go shopping with "Grandma"! Enjoy the naked tree photo.

photo of the day - 11/29

He's baaaaaack!

After 9 long months, living through the heat of the Arizona summer, Don Juan is back in Western Washington just in time for the cold weather. He has lived with his breeder since last March. The idea of him going there was so he could make some beautiful puppies. Little did they know that Don Juan is all action and doesn't want the responsibility of fatherhood. So the 6 times they bred him, no puppies resulted. In comes a canine fertility specialist who just did a proceedure with Don Juan and the last female in the hopes that at least one litter of puppies will result. Puppies from Don Juan are very important to his breeder. He is the last unspayed/unneutered shiba from their original two shibas. Both of which did some serious winning in the show ring. So he's finally home, just in time for the Holidays.

Photo of the day - 11/28

We woke up this morning to frost on the ground. I guess winter is finally here. As I was walking J to the bus this morning I noticed in particular how beautiful the Holly Trees are laced in frost. So I ran in and got my camera. The frost was higher in the tree so I had to reach up and hold the camera without looking at the viewfinder. So some of my photos are rather crappy, but I really liked the way this one turned out. I'll try to take a few more before the frost melts. Maybe I should drag out a ladder and try to photograph the ones I couldn't reach from the ground. I really think if I can get just the right photo, I could have a pretty awesome Christmas card this year. This photo is definately not perfect, but it's close to what I'd like to see.

Photo of the day - 11/27

So, is she? Or is she not?

Tama flew off to Oregon last month to visit her arranged boyfriend for a couple weeks. And now we are just waiting... will there be puppies in our future?

Tama is a conformation champion that finished with 5 majors. Her father was ranked in the top 10 of shiba inus in the nation, and she has a pedigree with 23 other conformation champions in it. The male is a really nice japanese import who's father was a japanese champion and he and his half brother are both champions and are doing quite nicely as specials in the show rings here in the US.

One more month to go!

Photo of the day - 11/26

Today's our anniversary - 12 years! So what did I do exciting and wonderful on my 12th anniversary? Hmmm... I cleaned the house. And DH and J worked on hanging Christmas lights. So I guess the excitement of an anniversary has really worn off over the years. The problem is that our anniversary usually falls right after Thanksgiving where we've just had a big family celebration and lots of together time. We have tons of food in the refrigerator, so neither one of us have any desire to go out to eat. And not to mention that the Mother-in-Law will be here this week, so our household chores really need to be done so she doesn't think we're slackers. So today really was just another day. And the countdown to 13 years begins tomorrow.

And before anyone asks, DH is not related to Matthew Perry, although those of us who know him the best will often call him Chandler.

Photo of the day - 11/25

Today my two boys (DH and DS) brought home a BIG surprise. They left the house to go buy some glue and came home with our Christmas Tree. J was beaming with pride and he can barely wait to decorate it.



We have very high ceilings in our living room and tall windows. And even though this tree is over 7ft it would barely show outside the window. So we put it on a table to raise it up enough that you can see it from outside the house too. I like it elevated like this. It really makes it a centerpiece of the living room.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Artwork from my favorite 5-year old artist!



And I'm thankful that all the cooking and cleaning is done for the day! All in all it was a wonderful meal and a great time spent together.

Photo of the day - 11/23

So much to do, so little time. With Thanksgiving being tomorrow, I have so much to get done today to make it a holiday to remember. So here's one of my first chores. It's time to bake the pumpkins to make pumpkin pie. We grew these pumpkins this summer. And the black marks on them are from our favorite oversize blue bird, Colbalt. He has to taste everything in the garden to make sure it's OK for our consumption. I love the way our undercounter lights bounced off the tops of the pumpkins in this photo and made them sparkle on top.

So say goodbye to the last two home grown pumpkins. They'll be a tasty dessert very soon. Happy Thanksgiving!



Edited to add...

I ended up only baking one of the pumpkins. The pumpkin is done baking so now I have a pile of mush. Time to puree it in the blender. The pumpkin made almost 10 cups of mush. We gave my neighbor some of it and froze the rest. Good thing I only baked one!


Some people marry for love. I married for that and for my DH's pie crust. He's actually won a pie contest because he makes the very BEST pie crusts. So while I was scooping and blending, he was making the crust for my pumpkin pie. And since he doesn't like pumpkin, he made himself a Million Dollar Pie (similar to a pecan pie)



And here is the result. Mmmmm.... I can't wait until tomorrow. Do you think I could sneak just a tiny piece tonight. Would anyone notice?



So this pie is a little different than a normal pumpkin pie. It has a walnut topping that you add part way through baking. The recipe was created by a 15-year old boy and can be found here:

Nic's Pumpkin Pie

Edited to add, again...
DH read my blog and was rather perturbed that I didn't post a picture of his pie. So here it is. His favorite pie... Million Dollar Pie.

Photo of the day - 11/22

Just a quick photo of J... checking out the new chair that I bought today.



I had an empty spot in my living room that really needed to be filled. I'm not sure my DH agrees with that, but for months I've looked in the room and imagined a red chair that would balance out the space with our piano which was on the opposite side of the room. So I found one today and brought it home. It works. It fills the spot, and J thinks it's really comfortable.

Photo of the day - 11/21

Puget Sound near downtown Seattle as the sun sets on Mt. Ranier.

Photo of the Day - 11/20 - Meet Colbalt

Here is our resident Big Bird. Some people take in stray dogs and cats, but our neighborhood has adopted a peacock. He wandered in one day and has been here a couple years. You can usually find him eating bugs in the garden or pearched on top of someone's house.

Photo of the day - 11/19

J was playing outside with his friend this morning. I snapped this photo with a telephoto lens so he didn't see me and start posing. There is something about the freshness of this photo that I really liked. He was dancing and running, and having the best time.

Photo of the day - 11/18

I haven't done one of my favorite photography subjects for awhile, so here it is - My dog, Dakota.

Dakota was a rescue from a working dog ranch. He was kicked in the head by a cow when they first started him herding cows and after that he refused to herd. He would beeline it back to the kennel whenever they took him out to pasture. I think the kick must have rattled a few brain cells in the poor boy's head. He is about the stupidest dog that I have ever had the pleasure to work with.

So here's a typical day with Dakota. Dakota is a trained agility dog. He learns from repetition. He doesn't try to figure out anything on his own. If you tell him to do something he will only do it exactly as you have taught him. My son and I like to go to the coffee shop for hot chocolate and lattes. They have a seating area outside that on nice days you can sip your drink and enjoy the Seattle "sun breaks". One morning we got our drinks and we set up at one of the outside tables. This cafe welcomes dogs on their patio. So I went and got Dakota out of the car. As I was walking up to the table, I said to him, "Dakota, go lay under the table" Boom. He was on top of the table and our drinks were on the ground. What the "heck"? And it was then that I remembered. The word table to Dakota is an agility word that means lay down on top the table. Nevermind that the table in the agility ring is square and only 20 inches tall, and the one at the cafe is 36 inches tall and round. To Dakota, it meant the same. To any of my other dogs, they would have stopped and given me a confused look and then blatently denied my request to "table" because they are intelligent enough to know that I didn't have a clue what I was talking about.

The ironic thing is Dakota is actually my most titled dog in the dog sports. He will work for me until the cows come home. He loves me more than anything else - except maybe a frisbee.

Photo(s) of the day - 11/17

So, I took a few more photos than just one today. But it's not every day that I spend the morning shopping and hanging out at the Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle. My morning started out with a ferry ride across the Puget Sound, a short walk uphill to the Market, browsing the vendors, looking at all the fresh produce, and fish. We stopped at a little cafe for tea and crumpets for brunch. I had a little buying frenzy afterwards including scoring two boxes of Market Spice Tea (the best tea in the world), some Mac and Cheese from the Cheese store, bakery goods, apples, and some smoked salmon.

So here are my photos from today!

Photo of the day - 11/16

Look what I found in the local coffee shop! And yes, they taste as good as they look. I just had to try a sprinkled fall leaf.

Photo of the day - 11/15

My morning walk led me into the Grand Forest. A nature preserve with some old growth trees. It has beautiful walking paths through the trees, ferns, lots of hanging moss and streams. Today the weather was actually sunny, so I was able to take this photo of the sunlight dappling the tree trunks. Usually in the winter it is so dark in the Grand Forest that I have to use a flash or a tripod to hold the camera to get anything that isn't blurry.

Photo of the day - 11/14

As I was on my morning walk, I liked how the blues on the boats played off of each other. So here's today's photo.

Scrapbooking Weekend - Photo of the day 11/12 & 11/13

This past weekend was our Western Washington Scrappers retreat at Ft. Worden State Park in Port Townsend, WA. Just imagine, tons of paper, adhesives, and embellishments filling 6-foot tables of over 100 scrappers. Personally I took more scrapbooking supplies than I did luggage for myself. I was successful in getting a bunch of pages done in an album that I am doing for a friend of mine in California, and a few pages done for my son's album.



Ft. Worden is an old military base built in a beautiful Victorian style. Most of us had our our own room in the old barracks. This place has a history. You can almost feel the ghosts walking the same floors that creak below your feet as you walk. The barracks don't have a scary feel - just a feel of history. It really is an inspirational place. It's right on the water and some of the rooms even had a view of the water.


So, for photo of the day(s), I was walking around Ft. Worden and took a trip down by the Lighthouse early in the morning. OK, truthfully, I had been scoping out the best times to photograph this lighthouse and I decided morning would be the best to get the true feel of the place. So I headed down there right after I woke up this morning. It was more overcast than I had expected, but I still love the erie feel of the place. The lighthouse overlooks the Strait of Juan de Fuca which connects the Pacific Ocean with the Puget Sound. So while I was there, I saw many HUGE cargo ships on their way out to sea.

Photo of the day - 11/11

Aren't they cute when they are asleep. J has never been a good sleeper. From the time he was born, his internal alarm clock would wake him up at 5:30 am. And 5 years later, it still wakes him up at the same time. Now that the time has "fallen" back, he's awake at 4:30 am. So you can imagine how much I relish when I see those little eyes closed tightly, sound asleep.

Photo of the day - 11/10

In my photography class today we went to a few of the downtown shops and photographed textures and colors. Here are a couple of photos that I took...

Photo of the day - 11/9

The mad catter...If looks could kill... he's not a happy kitty right now... watch your back canines!

photo of the day - 11/8

We broke out J's winter coat this morning. Which was a good thing since he lost his lightweight jacket at school somewhere. The leaves are almost off the trees. The grey sky is back. Mornings are dense and foggy. It was 40 degrees this morning when I walked J to the bus. It feels like winter is here.

Disappointment...

I don't think I've ever really seen J disappointed. He usually rolls with the punches and he may whine a little but most of the time it's to work the system to get what he wants not because he really feels bad himself. He's learned manipulation at a very young age.

So yesterday, I entered him in a children's art contest. He's very proud of his artwork. Loves to do art. And why wouldn't he when he is surrounded by parents that also love to create!

I really didn't expect him to win. I just thought it would be fun to enter and I knew he would get a participation ribbon out of it. His artwork was cute, but he was entered in a category with K-2nd graders. And he is a young kindergartener and doesn't have a refined style. (read in here... it looks like a kindergartener did it)

So we are sitting there at the awards ceremony and they are calling out names, and I see tears running down his face. Not the fake tears accompanied by the loud noises he makes when he's faking for our benefit, but a quiet, inward, soft crying. I put my arm around him and he says, "they didn't like my art".

And I said, "you got a ribbon, they did like it, see?" And he said, "everyone gets a ribbon. I wanted to win so I could buy you a present." The prizes were $25 - $100 in cash.

And so I asked, "What would you buy me?" Trying to stray from the subject.

And he responded, "A horse."

I had to chuckle. But at the same time, I felt really bad for him. This poor kid went into this expecting to win so he could take his small winnings and buy a horse. And I could tell, he was feeling the same disappointment that I feel everytime I submit a scrapbook page to a contest and don't win. Every time I do a project for a client and they rip it apart and make it totally not my style. And every time I've competed with my dogs and fallen flat on my face. I've experienced enough disappointment for both of us. And, I wasn't ready for J to feel it too.

And by the way, as much as I'd like to have a horse, I think J wants one much worse than I do.

The fruit I know nothing about...

We have a persimmon tree growing in our yard. It was so full of color this fall. This is the first year that the tree has has fruit on it. So now what? The fruit is as hard as rocks even though the leaves are pretty much vacating the tree. But the fruit is beautiful like orange ornaments hanging on the tree. And since this tree is 15 years old and had never borne fruit before, I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I just had to photograph how beautiful it was...

Photo of the day - 11/5

When it rains, it pours. So it's time to set up an inside shoot. No background. I just had J lay on the sofa so I could take some pictures of him.

Photo of the day - 11/4

Still raining. And for a girl that doesn't like rain, I feel a little like Elphaba from Wicked: The Life & Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, except that I'm not green. So this photo pretty much describes my trapped-inside, waiting-for-the-rain-to-let-up, how-much-longer-until-summer-starts, emotional state right now...

Picture of the day - 11/3

Here was my inspiration
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
" A photograph is a drawing with light. ... And in photography, the lens, light and the negative or digital sensor are to the photograph what the pencil, graphite and the paper are to pencil drawings: the instrument, the medium and the support." Paraphrased fromMaking Pictures by Ben Lifson January 2005

What does that mean to us PODers... Light is as important to your picture as your camera and the film or digital sensor. (Sometimes it is more important.) It is one of your tools. Look at the light (or lack of light) and see how if effects your picture. Draw with light today... See how light changes during the day... start observing light and then actively use to make a picture...
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Now here's the problem. I have no sunlight today. It's a dark, dreary, rainy, Seattle day. So, I'm off to my photography class, and then to take photos and I'll see what I can do in almost no light.

I'm back, and on my way home from class, I saw the drops of rain being highlighted on some leaves. So here is my photo of the day.

Photo of the day - 11/2

I didn't catch the thread today, so I'm posting two of my animal pictures that I shot for my photography class that is due on Thursday. I went to a rescue facility called Furrytale Farm and these two pictures are of animals that have been rescued and live on the farm. What a lovely facility.

Happy Halloween!

Our Halloween night... full of one big white scary ghost, a canine witch and some really eery pumpkins. No wonder so few trick or treaters came to our door. I am doing the photo of the day challenge on www.twopeasinabucket.com (for the Pub) message board. So I am posting a few of my favorite photos from last night.