Yes, that's me without eyeliner. And I'm still worthy of love. That was/is harder than it really should have been.
What about you? Ready to shed that falacy that perfection is attainable? And if you have attained it, are you ready to accept that you don't have to maintain it and you'll be ok?
Just askin'
So, hopefully, you can right click and choose and click and set and adjust (if'n you want) as your desktop calendar. It has been mine since I created it.
If my guilt wins out and I have the time and/or energy, my original plan was to photograph pumpkins. If that happens, I may succomb and post another over the weekend. No guarantees though. I wouldn't mind hearing how you feel about this photo and in particular the calendar. My Mister often tells me that my personal favorites of, oh, you name any category, aren't necessarily what the majority would choose as their favorite. Color me curious.
I am fortunate to have, for the last 21 years (gulp) worked downtown Portland. There are more reasons that is a good thing than I can begin to recount. Two of them though, are that the river runs through it and my office is 2 blocks from said river and second that I now live within bike riding distance from downtown. An easy bike ride at that. The upshot is that I actually spend a marginal amount of time on the waterfront. A couple photos I took that I liked for different reasons. The top photo, I was walking by and saw the brilliant blue of the decking on this boat. And below, as I walked across the pedestrian bridge below the Steel Bridge, the industry that is right here. Up close and personal. Immediately adjacent to the recreation areas created. It really is a wonderful town.
I am loving this photo and that feels good today.
Yesterday, I rode my bike to work. My goal this summer was to be a bike maniac and ride all the time for commuting purposes and also, just for the fun and exercise. Well, that just didn't happen. My life takes over. And, well, let's be honest, my laziness. Eh, at least I can admit it. Anyway, I rode my bike yesterday and on the ride home I saw several things I thought about photographing. (I had my camera with me, just for these instances. I had actually planned ahead. I'm a great planner.) But, I just kept on riding, you know, with the goal of getting home. Not stopping to take photos of the 6 foot tall aster/daisy clump that looked all ethereal and washed out with the bluest of skies behind it. Not taking the photo I composed in my head of the bluest sky and the single lone fluffy white cloud just hanging there without a friend. Not taking a photo of the.... well, you enter whatever you want here because I didn't stop to take its photo. As I'm riding along, I am composing a blog post in my head about how I really need to "stop and smell the roses" more often. And I realized, as I saw a lone kayaker on the river below, that, instead of just thinking about blogging about my 'issue'.... let's just call it that for now, I should actually do the whole "stopping and smelling" thing.
I did exactly that. I pulled over, got my camera out of my backpack, clinched the camera strap between my teeth as I turned around on the path and rode back the few yards to capture the beauty and solemnity of the person in the kayak. Humid Fall afternoon, lazy glassy river, peaceful scene with the kayaker.... I turn on my camera to get the shot I have all nestled in my brain and what do you know . . . the batteries are dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. The batteries I just put into the camera one day before.
Irritated to say the very least. So, I packed up the camera, saddle my tuchas back onto the seat and rode home. No photo. But I did get a blog post out of the experience, so not all was lost and or wasted on the effort. How are you at being here and now, here and now?
Now, this next photo is what you (I) get when I'm very, very uninspired and need a photo for the day. Truth be told, our office has quite a bit of very eclectic art and there is a series of macro photography of letter/numbers. This was a sort of, Lucy-ized take on that theme. Not great, but, hey not every photo will will a prize.
We walked, partially in the rain, Sunday in the ALS fundraiser / awareness walk here in our fair city. Humid beyond your wildest dreams. Emotional to say the least. We have a very dear friend who lost his father exactly one year ago today to this terrible disease. We have another very dear friend whose father is currently (probably) in the very late stages of this same disease.
I'm becoming of a "certain" age. These types of things are coming closer and closer to my personal life. I am having close friends who have parents and other loved ones pass away from this life. I am seeing the little, tiny children of friends that I used to carry around in my arms who are living on their own and starting families of their own. I am, for the very first time in my life, not worried, but thoughtful about the demise of my family and friends and loved ones. I am thoughtful about my own mortality in ways I've never been. No, I don't think I'm all gloom and doom about it. Its just different for me to think this way. Possibly because I don't have children of my own this is coming to me later than to some? I don't know. Just throwing it out there so I can see what it looks like from a distance.
The photo at the top I decided was the official photo of the day. But, I had played with it and one of the other versions that didn't make the cut is below. It was a very close second.
End of Summer is officially here. The fountains will be turned off, the skies will be turning steadily more cloudy and grey. But for now, they are still amazing.
Monday was Mister and my seven year anniversary. The anniversary of when we met. Even though we are now married, we still celebrate that day each year. How odd to have met someone and then spent the next seven years with them. I mean, for me, that's a very long time. I made one of Mister's very favorite foods, meatloaf. We had it with mashed potato/celery root and a green salad with balsamic vinaigrette. So-very-yummy.
I used my "go-to" meatloaf recipe found HERE. And, can you guess? I changed it up a bit. Not much, but a little. I added about half a bunch of kale, chopped, to the mushrooms/sun dried tomatoes and used bread crumbs (for shear laziness reasons) instead of the oatmeal. I placed half the meat mixture in an 8x8 pan, spread the filling, then the balance of the meat. The result of using the 8x8 pan instead of a loaf or a round pan was fantastic. The slices were a bit thinner, which is good for my portion control.
Mister's newest idea is for me to take this recipe, incorporating the filling into the actual body of the 'loaf' and make meatballs. I think I might just take him up on that, soon. We are having company, I think, in October and that would be fantastic in spaghetti.
PS - Is there anything better than a cold meatloaf sandwich? I think not.
Ciao bellas!
We spent a lovely, lovely weekend with friends this weekend. It was the first time we've been to their home and holy schmoly! So awesome. Its roughly 3+ times the size of Mister and my place. I'm not all about size, but their master bedroom was the size of our dining room PLUS our living room, and then maybe some more. A door to a deck and a view of the valley. Sigh. Have I told you that Mister and I live in a 1912 home? Have I told you that Mister and my bedroom has a king sized bed in it and well, it barely fits in the room. We have just enough room on each side to walk around the bed. I love our home, but having so much space and more than one bathroom. I was in heaven. Well, for lots of reasons, we adore our friends to pieces too.
This morning, for just a glimmery moment (or 27) the skies over Mt. Hood were amazing and yellow and there you go. Two of the same photos you've seen over and over....... I'm boring myself (just a little bit) right now.
How delicious does that sound? Its a limited edition "City" flavor, inspired/designed by Spike Lee. Absolut donates to Habitat for Humanity for every bottle purchased. Anyway, I'm thinking with ginger ale, or Sprite, or club soda it would be delicious.
Photos aren't great. I've realized food photography is difficult at best. You have to stage everything. I'm more of a catch something great on the fly. I don't want to arrange and change and set up and redo. Not in my personality.
But, the brownies were De-li-cious!
I don't know how it even works, so this post is a test. I would greatly appreciate if you (my reader) would see if you can set this (its coming, trust me, I just have to get out all my rambling...) photo calendar as your desktop and let me know how it worked. Size, ease, does it work at all. You know, don't ya?
Anyway!! Here it is. This first one is a jpg file.
If you have the time to help me out, I would be in your debt and in payment thereof, would try really, really hard to remember to post one each month (preferably before the end of the previous month, but, you know how I can be). I think all you have to do is right click on the image below and then click "set as desktop background". But, I'm not sure. Hence the testing.
blah blah blah... feeback would be fantastic, please and thank you.
Ciao Bellas!
Weird weather this year. I actually saw crocus blooming in our neighborhood. In several yards. Crocus bloom in the spring before the tulips and before the daffodils. Its now September folks.
I saw this rose bush as I walked. The bloom was so soft and pillowy looking. Tinged just on the edges with a soft pink. Gorgeous.
What have I been doing? Well, I've recentely made chicken pot pie *drool*. It might have actually been the best pot pie I've ever made. Its that kind of weather now. Homespun, warm, delicious foods from the oven. I have been craving stuffed peppers. I see them in my near future.
I made zuchini bread - two loaves. One with chocolate chips and walnuts for Mister and one with raisins and walnuts for mom-in-law.
I also made Loganberry freezer jam. Mister just likes to eat it with a spoon. I like it on toast, pancakes, waffles (not that I ever eat those things, but it would be amazing) on peanutbutter and jelly sandwiches, on ice cream, well, on just about anything. Mmmm, logan berries.....
I have an office birthday to bake for tomorrow. I plan to bake these brownies with pretzels, (from the Crepes of Wrath) only, you know me, I'll change it up. Instead of the regular pretzels and toffee chips, I have chocolate covered pretzels for the topping. I have made other recipes from that blog and they were decidedly delicious. Check out her Snickerdoodle Blondies, if you haven't already.
That's all for now. Getting ready to think about Mister and my anniversary, and Halloween. Can't muster much more right now.
What are you up to these days?
40th birthday party for a wonderful friend Friday evening. The place was decorated so lovely, part of which were these candlesticks. I would have had more photos, but (there's always a "but") my camera batteries died. I then found the extra set, replaced them, and those proceeded to also be dead. So, one photo.
I just love real freshly grown apples. I grew up living in a house that had an orchard. Apples (many varieties), pears, plums (several varieties), cherries and a peach tree. The peach tree never did a thing but produce golf ball sized hard little rockish fruits. Who ever thought a peach tree on the southern Oregon coast would work? An optimist, that's my guess. We had blackberries and strawberries and a huge garden. Looking back, it was such a wonderful upbringing. I wouldn't change it if I could.
We had all manner of fresh lovely apples whenever we wanted them, y0u know, during the growing season that is. Fresh apple pie and apple sauce and apples just to crunch on as we played in the orchards climbing trees, building forts, riding our bikes. To this day, I have a very hard time buying apples at the store. They just don't taste like apples to me. So, I should really amend that to say, I do love buying apples during this time of year, so long as I find current season fruit. It seems to be much easier today to do just that than it has been in the past.
Simpler times. That is where my mind journeys when I see apples growing on trees.
Oregon grape. We have several of these in our yard (low ones and tall ones). For variety, don't ya know. Mister loves them for some reason. I guess they are ok, just not my personal fav.
I liked the urban (duh!) feel of this. The townhome decks contrasting with the (possibly) historic red brick building. The trolley lines and the guy on the cell phone. It might only have been better had I dulled out the hues and made it seem like a retro photo. Then again, maybe not.
This is me, as of yesterday. I was given a heart felt verbal smack-down recently by some very good friends. The gist of it was, "girlfriend, stop waiting for 'some day' own it now". Here's me, doing my best to "own" my being, my person, my everything. So much easier said than done.
Eh, I like it, its not fabulous. I just like the juxtaposition of the natural and the manmade.
I occasionally check out the ShutterSisters website (link on sidebar). One day recently, the challenge (if you will) was to take a shot "into" the sun. Something which would normally be at your back as you took a shot allowing the sun to illuminate your subject and not shadow it. I liked the way this turned out. Not exactly how I wanted - its not easy taking photos while looking at the sun - you figure that one out. I attempted to have the sun behind the petals to make them glow. It worked, if only slightly.
More into the sun.
Another reflective photo, sunflower and glass. I like this one a lot, I like the angle on the sunflower petals, the back and forth. I also think the top petals look like eyelashes which makes the whole thing look like an eye peering in the window. (Oh, that was a bit creepy after I typed it out.)
And there you go. The bloopers, if you will.
In the evening the sky was amazing. It was all feathery and mutated from blue to orange to yellow to blood red before the sun finally set at which point the wispy clouds turned grey and black.
Just a shot of the lake. One day it was as calm as a puddle in the yard and the next day it had white caps all day long. Mother Nature, wonderfully and awesomely (sp?) unpredictable.
Spent the long weekend at Timothy Lake on Mt. Hood. It was a much needed relaxing time. The lake is beautiful. Next year, Mister and plan to actually spend some time in/on the water. Hopefully the weather will cooperate.
