• Blog - Photography

    2014 Summer Scavenger Hunt wrap up

    It’s time! Time to wrap up the 2014 Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt

    1. A sign welcoming people to your home town (or a nearby town)

    This is a sign from a nearby town I took one morning…hey, this one could even work for #13 a sunrise. Kind of a crummy photo but what do you expect for a really old cell phone through a windshield.
    sign
    2. A garden gnome

    I didn’t need to go far for the gnomes since my neighbor collects them.

    gnome collage
    3. Birds on a wire

    I wish I’d gotten a picture of a large power line that was just solid black with birds but I was driving…so you’ll have to be satisfied with these.
    bird on a wire birds on a wire 2

    4. A group of tourists

    What a great day this was with the family.tourists
    5. A rack of post cards

    Wall Drug: Wall, SDpostcard rack
    6. An urban street scene

    Minneapolis, MNurban street scene
    7. A rural landscape

    Various MN locationsrural landscape 3 rural landscape 1 rural landscape 2
    8. A tattoo on a persontatoo
    9. A bakery  I’m going with Alternative B: A bird house

    Another crummy cell phone picturebirdhouse
    10. A photo bomb (someone found lurking in the background of photo; the lurker may have intended to disrupt the picture or may be doing it unintentionally, but the background lurker is a surprise to the photographer)

    Gracie photobombing while I was trying to capture photos of giant bubbles photo bomb
    11. A horn

    I honestly could have had a whole collage of horns but I left it to this one photo.horn
    12. A mascot

    All taken during the 4th of July parade.mascot collage
    13. A sunrise

    This one was hard to get over summer since I didn’t have to get up quite so early. sunrise
    14. A parade

    Self explanatory.parade
    15. A juggler

    A little pre-parade entertainment.juggler
    16. A sign in a language other than English

    I took a liberty with this one. If I’m not mistaken those are Latin names for the flowers.FLcollage
    17. A lamp post

    I had never noticed all the unique lampposts around until this scavenger hunt. lamppost lamppost3 lamppost 2
    18. A water fall

    I really could have made 2 collages of waterfalls. I saw a lot of falling water. 🙂waterfall collage
    19. A public garden

    Minnesota Landscape Arboretumpublic garden public garden 2
    20. A bus (not a car, truck, lorry, camper or RV) with a picture painted on its sides.

    I thought this one would be difficult but I saw lots of painted buses, however, I only had my camera ready for 3.buscollage
    21. A photograph of you with something representing the season (recognizing that the season will be Winter for our friends in the southern hemisphere).

    This first photo I can be seen in the rearview mirror photographing the bison that tried to ram the van…seriously. It was almost a “State Farm moment”.

    summer activity 2

     

    I can be found under the yellow canopy waiting for the parade to start.
    summer activity

    Whew!! I did it! I’m a little bummed that I didn’t get a bakery. I saw one over summer but again was not prepared with a camera. I considered taking a photo at our local grocery store of the baked goods section but decided that was cheating.

    I’m looking forward to playing along with this challenge again…. Thanks to Rinda @gallorganico  for this fun summer challenge.

  • Blog - Kitchen

    T Tuesday: catching up edition

    Welcome to T stands for Tuesday.T stands for Tuesday_200

    Do I dare say that I think our internet troubles are finally over?  We haven’t had a reboot in almost 3 days now.  Of course, we’ve hardly used the computer either since we’ve been so busy.  Where shall I start?

    Apples….Phil and friends

    We helped with the annual harvest at our neighbors house on Saturday. We brought home 6 grocery bags of apples to be processed…a fraction of the total haul from their 7 trees.

    Later that evening I went to a new neighborhood edition of craft club, where I made these 4 cards as well as got my stamp on the backs of a huge stack of previously made cards. I was pretty tired from the day and didn’t really have my craft mojo going.

    craft club cards

    Sunday was spent with Little J in the garage processing through the apples.  They are organic so they have spots and holes so most need some trimming after being run through the peeler/corer/slicer. BIG JOB! So glad I had help this year. We ended up with about 15 gallons of apples ready for the next step.

    applesauce

    So far I’ve made 7 quarts of sauce…

    apple pie

    One pie…dehyrator

    An overstuffed quart bag of dried apple slices and three 8×8 apple crisps are in the freezer at the ready for future desserts. That was only about 1/2 the apples. More apple-ing today…

    Last night I had a well deserved glass of wine.relaxing

    Last week I finally got around to doing some creating…here’s a work-in-progress shot of a painting.

    WIP

    I’m a little late with my post today as I went for a walk with a friend around a local lake this morning. 4.25miles.  It was a little brisk at times but as long as you keep moving it helps keep you warm.

    What are you doing today?

  • Blog

    T Tuesday: growing up edition

    T stands for Tuesday_200Good morning and welcome to another edition of T stands for Tuesday. Our hostess with the mostess, Elizabeth (along with her furry companion Bleubeard) is not a stickler for any sort of rules…she asks that we share a virtual beverage of your choice and whatever else you’d like to share for the week.

    horse cup

    As I sat in the quiet this morning with my coffee I was thinking about all the changes that will be happening for the kids in a couple weeks. Both into new schools…High school and Middle school. I’m no longer an Elementary school parent. Then I look over at my coffee and see Playmobil horses and realize that they really are still just kids. Don’t grow up too fast…