Wilting White Roses

My friend Amanda works at the Washington Pavillion as an events coordinator. She had a bridal show on Sunday and gave me these roses left over from it. There was one condition - I had to return the beautiful, three-foot tall vase they were in. No problem. I'm trusty-worthy.

While we were at work, our cat jumped on the table, knocking the vase and flowers to the floor and shattering the top foot of the vase. We came home to find glass shards in a 10-foot radius around the table. BAD, BAD KITTY!!

I was able to salvage some roses to photograph, at least. I feel terrible about the vase though. Sorry Amanda!!

Today we went to Target to pick up a couple things for our trip next weekend. We happened to see a small version of a 8-foot tall tree that our friends Neal and Becky had given us when they moved to North Dakota. We decided to plant a few more of these little guys in with the tree. It's so much fun to watch things grow. Grandma Creta is coming in 2 weeks - she has an amazingly green thumb. She has started all of our plants for us, with the exception of this plant and tree. Her house is overflowing with green and her kitchen windowstill always has new cuttings on it. We're glad that she shares with us! 

Rain in January

Today it rained. Hard.

In January, in South Dakota, this is against everything we've ever known. It should have been blizzarding and the snow should have shut everything down for a couple days. Instead, the gray sky pushed fat rain drops to the earth.

On Thanksgiving, it was so nice we almost left our winter coats at home. Fortunately we didn't, because halfway through the six hour drive across the state we were stuck in a blizzard that shut down the interstate for two days and snapped hundreds of power lines. It left some people without power until after Christmas. Crazy.

And today, it rained as if it were April.

Mom

This is my mom. She and Dad live on a farm about an hour away from us. Dad went to Brazil this morning as part of the South Dakota Ag Rural Leaders class. It's his first time out of the country (wait, 2nd time if you count Canada.) I think Brazil would be amazing - he is going to have a great trip.

Mom is staying with us tonight and we're going to the farm tomorrow to chop some wood for Curns and for our upcoming camping trip at Palisades. Look for some "back home" photos tomorrow.

Travel Books

We have a lot of travel books. We've decided we can go somewhere in a few months - yeah!! I am so excited. But now... where to go?? We both think somewhere nice and warm! Hawaii? The Greek Islands again? Maybe South America? So many choices....

These books have been put to use many times and have been crammed in carted around in our packs for months. Except the Japan one. We were going to teach English there but decided not to go. Maybe the "1000 Places to See Before You Die" book will give me some inspiration. I am definitely thinking WARM though.... and we are budget travelers so no high-end resorts or stuff like that. Suggestions are welcome!!

Aaron & Bailey

Thought maybe you'd want to see Aaron, Bailey's owner. I know, it's an awful background but Bailey would not sit still!!

Bailey 6

OK, this really will be the final one. I think it is better than the first one, so this one will replace that one in the series when I get them printed out. First Curns has to have the money to buy a few frames. :-)

This will be the final photo in my Bailey series. She was fun to shoot! I hope I have enough variety and show the various "emotions" she has. 

I love this photo - the look on her face is great! She was letting the ball drop out of her mouth - too funny! If I have this in a series of five black and whites, do you think the bright yellow tennis ball is OK? Thanks for the comments! 

Bridge at Palisades State Park

Yesterday at lunch my husband told me he'd rented a camping cabin at Palisades State Park for the weekend. What a nice surprise! There was just an article in the paper about winter camping and how nice and peaceful it was.

Today we went to the park to check it out. This bridge was an easy walk from the cabin and the sun was setting so the light was shining perfectly on the rocks. I'm so excited - I'll probably fill my whole memory card that weekend! Our friends Crystal (check out her blog here) and Karl are going to come too. I'm looking forward to hanging out by a fire, hiking and taking lots of photos. The only not-that-great part is that the restrooms are closed for the winter so we'll have to use the vault toilets. They are made of metal - BRRRR!!!

Bailey - Sad Eyes

This was at the "will you please stop flashing that light in my eyes and just throw the ball?" stage.

Bailey - BANG!

Bailey is doing her "play dead" trick. She loves showing off. She doesn't look very dead though. I had to get rid of part of a bookshelf in the top left corner and I am not sure I am too happy with the results. Any suggestions?

Bailey

Bailey is a springer spaniel. She LOVES to play fetch with a tennis ball and absolutely will never stop retrieving the ball, no matter how exhausted she gets. She knows several tricks. The newest one goes like this: She sits and lies down, then you pull your hand out of your pocket and use it to mimic a gun. You look at her and shoot her, saying BANG! Then she'll roll over on her back with her paws in the air. Pretty cute. Her owner is a friend of ours, Aaron. They moved in a few months ago four houses down the street.

I'm going to be taking more photos of her, I'm sure. Typcial bachelor, Aaron doesn't have any photos or art on the walls. I want to do a series of Bailey to hang across a wall (about five 8x10s, I think), and tonight I may have taken enough photos of her to accomplish that. This photo doesn't look too great in the small size, but her eyes are in perfect focus and they look at you with the look only puppies have.

Well, I tried something different today. This is my Treo 650 with the Accented Edges filter in PS. It was hard to get a clear shot of the keys - the backlighting threw the focus off, I think. Or else the light kind of spilled over and illuminated everything else too. So... I played in PS a bit and this is what I came up with. I love my Treo. Email and web surfing in the palm of my hand! 

Plecostomus

I wasn't feelimg well today so didn't shoot anything exciting. I really do like the mobile blogging aspect of blogger! This is our plecostomus in his 55-gallon aquarium. We've just planted live plants there, after my husband built some really strong lights for them. I suspect as we add fish they will appear on my PaD too.

Cattails in the Winter Sun

Cattails at a local park. I really like the way the sun was shining on them. We had a warm spot in the cold South Dakota winter and I took advantage of being able to go outside without freezing.

Bed Post

This is one of the posts on our four poster bed. It was our Christmas present to ourselves, and it is just beautiful. The bedroom is not large enough for me to get the entire bed in at once, so I thought I'd capture just part of this beautiful piece of furniture.

Boots and Mousey Playing

This will probably be the last one of Boots and Mousey. Thanks for the suggestion on the selective desat Mike. The carpet is maroon so it really distracts from the photo, which is why I chose to make it black and white.

Eating Mousey

Boots likes to chew Mousey up too.

Boots

No Mousey today - just Boots.

Mousey Under Paw

Thanks Mike for the suggestion to have the many trials of Mousey this week. It is pretty hard to get a good photo of it and Boots, but I will try this week.

Mousey

Our cat Boots loves these things. They all have the same name - Mousey. Boots races up and down the stairs, hiding and pouncing, batting and killing Mousey. We find Mouseys under the couch, behind the fridge, under our laptop cases, in the hamper, hiding in closets and in our clean clothes that just came out of the dyer. Today Boots got a new pack of Mouseys and this time they have feather tails. She loves them.

Recipe

We had a really nice, good looking meal today. So I photographed it and may use it for the recipe challenge. If I end up not using it, I will post it right away, but if I do end up using it you'll just have to wait until voting is over to have it posted here. Sorry!!

Barn at Sunset

This was a grab-the-camera-and-go shot - the pink sunset was reflecting in the clouds and was just beautiful, but it was almost over by the time I got out of town. Sunsets go so fast! I didn't even have time to grab the tripod so it is a bit blurry too. *sigh*

Apple

This apple is pretty boring. I decided to try some filters in PS rather than spend time reshooting. I need some decent lights!

Sleeping Pills

This is my way to kill the Crazy Frog. Sleeping pills may not be an original way to die, but I really liked the look of the gel pills.

I have to PS like crazy to get my backgrounds even remotely close to white. If anyone has any tips on lighting, please pass them on to him. It is sad, I know, but right now I am using two desk lamps and a white piece of tag board for backgrounds. Help!

What really makes the world go 'round?

My husband and I love to travel. Instead of taking a trip last year, we bought a house. So, this year, I am determined to go somewhere! I have been in 26 countries but only 14 states. Funny, isn't it?

My parents got us this globe for Christmas. This photo is actually composed of two images. I overlaid the image of the globe still with one of it spinning, then played with the opacity of the layers. I wanted to be able to see the motion of it, yet make out the shape of the continents. This is my favorite photo I have posted on my PaD so far.

*sigh* My passport has not had a stamp in it for over a year. It makes me resless. If anyone is interested, our travel website is http://twoyoungtravelers.iwarp.com/. It hasn't been updated in aboout a year and a half though.

Snowy

This is our new fish Snowy. It is almost impossible to clearly capture a moving fish underwater. I really wanted him peeking out of the plants but he wouldn't cooperate. I settled for "not fuzzy" over semi-interesting. I do like the depth of field with the rocks though.

One of my goals for this week is to get out of the house and take some photos. It's hard because I commute an hour each way to work, so I leave in the dark and get home in the dark. Yuck. Gotta love SD winter. Another goal is to take a self-portait.

Plant Cuttings

Plant cuttings in my kitchen window, looking out on a cold snowy day. Taken with my Treo 650.

Ornament

Not a great photo. Our tree is gettting taken down tomorrow though. I've slept most of the day away and didn't put nearly enough effort into this project today. I guess there is always tomorrow.