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Weekly Winners, Week Ending 7.31.10

July 31, 2010 by 10 Comments

So, the puppy’s leg is fractured, there was a birthday in the house, and… uh… what else? I’m sorry, summer is just a big giant blur and each day blends into the day before it. It’s probably no surprise, after listening to me gripe about winter and now gripe about summer that I am not a fan of weather extremes — spring and fall? I love ’em though.

"I bet this is how your kids, and grand kids, are going to remember you. They aren't even going to remember you had eyes."

Sugar dusted chocolate chips.

Isn't this the saddest thing you ever saw? Now that he's on the mend, he's got a tremendous amount of energy though. It's kind of translating into aggression. CANNOT WAIT til the splint comes OFF.

I love how my dirty mirror almost looks like fancy bokeh. It's not bokeh! It's toothpaste splatter. Awesome.

Yes, it's probably one of the saddest things I've ever seen.

My kid brought this bear into my office - one more thing on my desk. I suppose if I cleaned it, I could actually use it. The rubik's cubes are for a photo project I haven't done yet.

Check out more weekly winners via LOTUS…

Filed Under: Mom Shtuff, Photography Tagged With: , , , ,

Weekly Winners – Week ending 7.17.10

July 17, 2010 by 13 Comments

I guess it’s only fair I warn you:

I didn’t really do anything this week. I have been a hormonal cranky beast (PMS, how I love thee!), and swamped with work and appointments and trying to get from here to there and there to here while balancing and juggling and spinning plates on little sticks and trying to not drop anything.

I survived.

But not much quality time with my Canon (*sad face*). Be sure to pop on over to visit Lotus and the other Weekly Winner participants, though.

Mentos + diet soda = fun Sunday night for the family

My daughters picked these for me. I'm lucky.

Unexpected capture with the point and shoot while out and about

Had my first run-in with puppy vomit on Friday. He's okay now, though.

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Thursday Ten: Not So Despicable Edition

July 1, 2010 by 2 Comments

1. It’s been a week since I was able to head to a sneak peek of the movie Despicable Me and I was SWORN TO SECRECY (til now) and couldn’t tell you about it.  My family goes to see quite a few kid oriented movies and it’s been a LONG time since I’ve enjoyed one as much as I enjoyed this one. I loved the story line, the voice cast is incredible (Steve Carrell, Julie Andrews – like, whoa). And usually 3-D is hard for me to watch – it gets too overwhelming. Not this time. I really loved it, as did my kids. Bonus: The music was done by Pharrell Williams – and I’ll be picking up the soundtrack when it becomes available on the 6th. Despicable Me is in theaters JULY 9.*

2. During the summer, guitar lessons are temporarily NOT on Thursdays, a change that somewhat throws me off. My lesson this week went well though. Next week, I take a break from telling my teacher what I want to learn and letting her pick something for me. I’m kind of excited to not know what comes next.

3. Speaking of guitar lessons and my guitar teacher… when I was in class, she mentioned her sister recommended a group to her and they reminded her of the folks from Once who sing “Falling Slowly”. She’s well aware that I love that song, so I asked her for the name of the group. They are The Civil Wars, and you can download their album free from their site (it redirects to their MySpace page). Lovely acoustic-y singer/songwriterly people. Love this song, “Poison And Wine” which was played on an ep of Grey’s Anatomy.

4. Puppy comes home tonight. We purchased his crate last night, and I’m in the process of researching everything I can about crate training and house training a puppy dog. Pumpkin got quite upset with me when I said that we’d be keeping DoggyDogg (no, not his name!) in the crate quite a bit initially — but, I think we’re all on the same page now. And if not, the crate is such a pain in the heinie to open that I know she won’t be able to sneak the puppy out.

5. Eclipse -did you see it? Are you going to? It’s funny when I think of how much I was looking forward to the original Twilight movie coming out… and then I didn’t love it. I’ve been kind of “over” it all since then. I’ll be sitting this one out.

6. Fourth of July weekend is coming up and I have no plans but house training a puppy. That sounds exciting, doesn’t it? I’ve never been one to make big July 4th plans though. I don’t even remember the last time I went out for fireworks – though, I’d kind of like to try to take some pictures of the fireworks this year.

7. Yesterday the Mother’s Helper was at our house to help me out while I was doing some work (and running Stepson from A to B back to A again – this ferrying around a teenager nonsense is tiring!), and she let The Princess use the Easy Bake oven. With my love of baking, I don’t know why I hate the Easy Bake as I do, but I really really don’t like the Easy Bake. Seems an awful lot of work for little scraps of cookies. It’s not even enough to knock the edge off a cookie craving. But she made a cookie for me to eat while I was working.

8. Yep, it was the Greek yogurt somehow making me sick. The thing is? Regular yogurt seems too sweet now (and I don’t love the texture). I will just take my chances. That’s some yogurt love, there.

9. I bought myself a new lens yesterday. It was not the priciest lens on my list (by far. Unfortunately I picked a really pricey hobby), but I’m hoping that it gives me a versatility I’m not currently getting with my 50 mm. I sure do love my 50, but I needed a little more flexibility in composing shots.

10. Reality TV Nit Picking: I really don’t like the way “So You Think You Can Dance” is set up this season. I think I was sleeping when they explained WHY they were doing this all-star version this way, but I kinda preferred when it was two contestants dancing versus a contestant and an all-star. And clearly I’ve already devoted too much time to thinking about it.

*Full disclosure: My family was given complimentary passes to the movie but the opinions are my own, as always.

Filed Under: Mom Shtuff, music, Photography, Thursday Ten Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Weekly Winners – Green Acres Edition

May 16, 2010 by 7 Comments

Oh, I LOVE Weekly Winners. All of my weekly winners were taken with my kit lens this week – oddly enough – but I was concerned that my 50 wouldn’t give me enough leeway for possible short distances between me and what I was shooting. And now I’m trying to pick what lens I need to get next.

For more weekly winners, be sure to bop on over to visit Lotus and check out the other participants.

Baby goose - Pumpkin named this little guy PADDLES

This goose is Max. He's a rather attractive little goose, dontcha think?

So tired.

My daughters gathered these from the chicken coops. How cool is THAT?

Miscellaneous farm stuff.

Fencelines.

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Weekly Winners, Middle of April Edition

April 17, 2010 by 13 Comments

Lotus’s weekly winners is definitely one of my favorite parts of the week. First of all, as you can CLEARLY see from her site, the woman takes AMAZING pictures. And then? So many people join along – and I love hopping from blog to blog to see what kind of week other people have had. So, head on over to Lotus’s place and check ’em out.

This week has been an interesting one for me – I’ve jumped back and forth between my lovely P&S and my new DSLR. Admittedly, habit makes me wanna grab the lil camera – it fits in my purse so easily. BUT BUT BUT, I love the shots I’m getting with the Rebel – and can’t wait to figure the shtuff out on that camera a bit more.

Here are a few of my favorite shots from the two cameras.

Sunday morning coffee on Orleans Street in Chicago

For a few weeks a year it blooms. Here we go.

Birthday flowers for my sister

Mother Nature's color palette blows my mind.

Slow like honey and heavy with mood.

Frame the day

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Thursday Ten: Did You PhotoHunt YET? Edition

April 15, 2010 by 1 Comment

1. You probably know that TODAY is the deadline for the photoscavenger hunt to raise moohlah for fighting breast cancer and kicking it in the bootay. Have you entered yet? No? Why not? Read more about it HERE.

2. New music for the week: Um, stuff from Glee. Yeah. I’m unashamed of my love for this show. I am also not at all embarassed that I now have at least three different versions of “Hello” in iTunes – including Lionel Richie’s original. I love that song and remember vaguely the video from way back when – wasn’t he blind in that video? Or the girl was? Whatever, I was too busy singing along.

3. The Princess lost another tooth over spring break. These two teeth falling out have left her with that adorable gap in the front of her mouth. I love it. I wonder if her dentist will give me a discount at her cleaning in a few weeks – clearly she has less teeth for him to check.

4. Project Runway night TONIGHT. I’m kinda curious which of the two-tied-designers ends up going to Bryant Park (I hope it’s not Mila). Oh, the suspense. Also, I’m pretty pleased with the other two who are definitely heading to Fashion Week – I’ve been pretty impressed with them all season. While this season is better than last season, I think Lifetime still has a way to go until it’s up to par with what the show was on Bravo.

5. Today is tax day. Are your taxes all done? Were you pulling your hair out getting things wrapped up last night so you could get ’em in today?

6. Today was my first guitar lesson in two weeks (due to spring break and what not). Admittedly, I have hardly picked up my guitar in that span of time and was more than a little concerned how badly it would go today. BUT… it didn’t! In fact, it went pretty well and I somehow managed to have made some progress. Things were fine til Pumpkin decided to smack my (very surprised) guitar teacher on the butt on the way out of the studio. Whoops.

7. My guitar teacher also let me know it was about time to pick more songs I wanted to learn to play – so if you have any ideas (NOT Freebird), drop me a comment. The request line is now open.

8. It’s 80 degrees in Michigan today. The sun is shining. The flowers are blooming. The air outside smells like cow manure. Michigan spring in full effect.

9. I went to book club last night and we had a pretty decent discussion stemming from the reading of Irreplaceable* – mostly regarding the topic of organ donation which was a primary theme in this novel. Then we chose next month’s selection out of the jar, and, DANG. It sounds like not my cup of tea. A non-fiction book about the oppression of women. GRANTED – I know the topic is important, and it actually has excellent reviews on both Amazon and Good Reads – but heavy lifting is not why I’m in a book club. I’m more than a little “meh” about that selection.

10. And in what is my most exciting news of the week: I finally got a big girl camera. I’ve been drooling over the Canon DSLRs for a long time and finally took the leap and got one. I’m kind of excited. I love it and I think it needs a name so that I can pat my camera lovingly and murmur sweet nothings to it. And if you’re gonna murmur sweet nothings to your camera it should totally have a name.

*affiliate link like whoa

Filed Under: Books and Stuff, Do Good Feel Good, Photography, Thursday Ten Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Weekly Winners, Chicago Style

April 11, 2010 by 21 Comments

I sure do love Chicago – so my weekly winners are a few of my favorite snaps from the Windy City. For more weekly winner awesomeness, visit Lotus, and the other participants of Lotus’s Weekly Winner carnival.

I got the Windy City Martini. Up 96 floors, a drink was kind of in order.

This is what a windy city martini looks like. Isn't it pretty and pink and fun?

Breath taking, nausea inducing view.

So TALL. SO SO TALL.

Lovely view. Chicago is one of my favorite places to be.

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Thursday Ten: Spring Break And Expecting Snow?! Edition

April 8, 2010 by 4 Comments

1. The kids are on spring break this week. It was beautiful Monday. Then it rained Tuesday. It rained yesterday. Today the skies are heavy with clouds, the air outside is cold and there’s a chance of snow in the forecast. Yuck. Also, it would have been a good idea to venture towards warmer weather over break.

2. Of course, as luck would have it – Spring Break happens to have fallen during an incredibly busy week for work. Crappy weather and being wicked busy? DOUBLE WHAMMY.

3. Yesterday, I baked a cheesecake – a turtle cheesecake. I’ve never made one before, but it involves peeling plastic wrappers off an entire bag of caramels so you can melt the caramel down to make a sauce to pour over the Oreo crust and then over the cheesecake before serving. I think actually making caramel from scratch would have been easier than unwrapping all those candies. And as I opened them, I kept flashing on the dialogue between Will and Skylar in Good Will Hunting. LOVE that movie.

Just as arbitrary as drinking coffee.

4. No guitar lesson this week which is probably a good thing because I haven’t even picked up my guitar this week to practice. I can tell when I haven’t practiced enough – the calluses on my fingertips are softer, almost like they used to be. Maybe I better write “PRACTICE GUITAR” on my to do list in big print, and then UNDERLINE IT. I like to write things on my to do list, because I like to cross things off my to do list (Like this: Eat breakfast).

5. I’ve been reading a lot lately. Last week, I polished off The Art of Racing in the Rain, which I adored so much. This week, I have started digging in to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society*. Admittedly, this is not normally a kind of book I enjoy, but I am liking it so far. I haven’t slammed the cover shut and thrown it across the room yet and I’m a third of the way through, so that’s a good sign.

6. New music of the week? Jack Johnson’s new single You And Your Heart*, which actually sounds like classic Jack, though I’ve read that his new album coming out soon is going to be more “rock-flavored”. Meh. I’m a lil bit nervous about that. I like beachy-acoustic Jack. Will I like rock Jack? I dunno. But, this single isn’t really a departure from the sound I expect from him. And I like it.

7. Apparently tomorrow is “NAME YOURSELF DAY”. If you were gonna choose YOUR name, what would you pick? Would you stick with the name that you were given or would you choose something totally different?

8. Have you joined our Photo Scavenger Hunt yet? Raising money for the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer – so if you have bewbs, or know of someone who does – you should probably enter and maybe win some awesome prizes -some of which will be given randomly and THAT MEANS, even if your every shot is photo-bombed by your thumb, you could still win things. Cool, right?

9. We took the kids to see “How to Train Your Dragon” last weekend – and they loved it. I don’t normally like stuff like that – dragons and whatnot, but it was pretty cute. Not cute? The cost of admission and snacks to take a whole family to a movie. Oy.

10. So, the iPad. Did you get one? Do you want one? Despite being a total Apple fan girl, I’m holding off for now. Perhaps it’s because I’m currently crushing on a Canon DSLR, and that is where my next big gadget expenditure will be. Don’t get me wrong, if someone handed me an iPad today and said, “Here! Take it! It’s YOURS!”, I’d take it and be happy. But I don’t want to spend my money on one just yet.

*Yes, affiliate links. I’m saving up to buy a pony.

Filed Under: Books and Stuff, Do Good Feel Good, Mom Shtuff, music, Photography, Thursday Ten Tagged With: , , , ,