Today is the last Foto Finish Post. Cat Patches has decided to end the weekly linky party so she can move on to other things. My first Foto Finish post was published on 12/4/2010, almost exactly 2 years ago. I had not planned to post today due to a very hectic family schedule this weekend, but if this is the last Foto Finish post, I most certainly want to help Barbara make it a memorable one.
Today's original theme is food. I always mean to take pictures when we eat, but apparently my stomach overrides my brain most of the time and the camera never makes it out of my purse. One exception was when we were on vacation this summer. We were vacationing at one of the state parks and had driven into the closest small town looking for something other than a sandwich. We were really surprised to find this little sushi restaurant along the main drag.
That we were able to find a place in southern Oklahoma which sold sushi really speaks to how popular it has become in the US. I'm not a big fish person and I definitely don't do raw fish, but smoked salmon with cream cheese is one of my favorite exotic dishes. Exotic means different things to different people. Growing up in the Midwest with parents who had both grown up on farms, tacos were exotic in our house when I was a kid. Even Drama Teen will eat sushi. At her age I wouldn't have even known what it was.
So that's my last Foto Finish. Thanks to Barbara of Cat Patches for being such a gracious hostess the last 2 years.
What a week! I've been away from the computer most of the week, so my apologies to those who I owe emails and for not being up to date on what's going on with you. It's always a mad house when My Guy is on the road and I'm left to hold down the fort. Monday was a zoo and my hopes for a slower paced Tuesday didn't happen. Wednesday was the only night we didn't have something going on and I was asleep in the recliner by 7:00 PM that night. Thankfully Drama Teen and I have nothing on the schedule this weekend. That's doubly good as poor DT caught the stomach bug making the rounds at school and spent her Friday morning either in the bathroom throwing up or in bed asleep. She managed a little dinner last night, so I'm hopeful she's over the worst.
It was nice to just sit back this morning and search the photo files for something that fit Barbara's theme of "look down". Some Saturdays I know just what I want to post, others I have to really do some searching. I remembered that we had taken some walks at Easter this year and thought there might be something in that set of photographs.
I'd completely forgotten about this photo. This little guy was taking advantage of some of the early spring wildflowers. The shot was taken at My Guy's family farm. Things were just starting to green up. We all spent a lot of time looking down that weekend as the snakes were also starting to wake up. Copperheads are common in the area and my brother-in-law had found one by the tree not far from where this was taken just the week before. I've never seen one close to the house, but many in the family have.
Check out Cat Patches to see what else is down with the world this week.
Ever have one of those weeks where you are not sure how you got to Saturday? This is one of those weeks for me. I think part of why the week seems so strange is that there was a lot going on away from work. I took off Wednesday afternoon for Drama Teen's Halloween party at school (I'm the homeroom mother this year), then My Guy and I took off Friday to do some Christmas shopping. I realize that seems a bit early, but My Guy has a new project that will require he be on site for 2 weeks this month and probably 1 to 2 weeks next month. So he won't have much time to Christmas shop, so we got done what we could yesterday.
Barbara has suggested "Birds" as this week's optional theme. I don't have a lot of bird shots, I tend to photograph flowers, so I'm usually looking down rather than looking up. But I did come across one photo that has a good story, though the photo is not all that good.
Last May, I was cleaning house and kept hearing this noise coming from the office. I'd walk into the office and not see anything. I'd hear the noise a bit later, walk into the office, still not see anything. This went on for a couple of weeks. It wasn't until one Saturday when I had to work in the office for a couple of hours, that I found out was making the noise. The weird noise started up, when I looked over at the window this creature was there tapping on the glass.
This female cardinal had built a nest in the rose bush just outside the office and apparently didn't like that other bird she saw in the window. She was going to peck the poor thing until it left. Doesn't she look annoyed? If she saw movement, she'd fly away. That's why I never saw her there before, my walking into the office was enough to make her abandon the pecking program. The window tapping stopped sometime in late June. She was pretty persistent until then.
That's it for me this week. Check out what else managed to wing it's way onto Cat Patches' Foto Finish post.
Thankfully it's Saturday. Unfortunately what I thought was going to be a carefree weekend filled with lots of sewing has become a work filled weekend due to deadlines. Unfortunately, the deadlines aren't mine or they would already have been addressed. Someone else waited until the absolute last minute to get a major report completed that needs to include some supporting work I did before I switched positions. I'd blow it off, but there are major ramifications for the other individual if I do. So rather than sewing, I'll be working. Though at least I can do it from home rather than have to spend the whole day in the office. That means I'll at least get some laundry done.
On to much more fun topics. Barbara has put forth "Spooky or Creepy" for this week's Foto Finish Post. Just for something a bit different, I did a little bit of Photoshop editing and added some digital scrapbooking enhancement for this week's post (In other words, I couldn't find something suitable otherwise).
The original banshee photo was taken at this year's haunted mausoleum at Drama Teen's school's Fun Night. Since My Guy and I had to work concessions the whole evening, we took a walk through before it opened. It's hard to get appropriately spooky shots in broad daylight. I used Photoshop Elements to cut the banshee away from it's original background, changed it to a black and white image, then saved as a png file. I found a suitable background from My Memories digital scrapbooking software and loaded the banshee png file over the page. I then used the opacity slider to fade out the banshee a bit.
You can waste spend a lot of time Photoshopping images. I try very hard to get the image I want when I take the photo. However, it's fun to play around with images, especially if you need something for a special project, like a card or a T-shirt. The company I work for has a "Lean Team Challenge" every holiday season. It starts in November and ends in January. The goal is to not gain any weight over the holiday and if possible maybe loose some weight. But the emphasis is really placed on maintaining your weight. My team's captain asked if I'd work up a logo for a team T-shirt. The combination of Photoshop and the scrapbooking software allows one to do some pretty cool things. Prototype 1 went out the team on Thursday. I've got some feedback to incorporate, but it's shaping up to be a fun logo.
Well it's time to go put in a load of laundry, fire up the work computer and bang out those additions to the report. Hopefully, I can get that all done today. I'll be checking in on my "breaks" to see what cool creepy and spooky things have been posted over at Cat Patches.
I almost forgot it was Saturday! How does that happen? Take Thursday and Friday off work. By the time you get to Saturday, you are not sure what day of the week it is. Drama Teen is on fall break this week and out of school. Rather than our typical family trip, we decided that this year we needed to have a girls weekend. So DT and I hooked up with my Mom and sister for a testosterone free weekend in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. We shopped the fun shops in the historic district yesterday. Today a bit of sight seeing and some antiquing are on the agenda once everyone wakes up from their beauty sleep.
What prompted my remembrance that it was indeed Saturday was Cat Patches Foto Finish post that popped up on Google Reader as the first entry. I'd been working hard this week to look for orange, so I could use a new foto and not one from the archives. I ended up with two to pick from. This one won out.
I have no idea what kind of flower this is. A mum of some type was my assumption. Rather than true orange, this is more of a red-orange, but as Barbara always leaves her themes up to the photographer's interpretation, I decided this fit. This one and a few relatives came home as a potted plant from Whole Foods and are currently residing on the dinning room table as a center piece. That's probably going to be the extent of my fall decorating.
Check out Cat Patches for more "orange" to brighten your day.
My big news of the week? The washer is fixed! Yeah! As much as I hate doing laundry, I'd much rather be doing it here than at the laundromat. Which is good as I have a lot of laundry to wash, dry and put away this weekend.
It's time for this week's Foto Finish. Barbara has picked "leaves" as this week's optional theme. October is a great month to take "leaf" shots as the trees are finally starting to put on their end of the season show. To help with the show, the angle of the sun this time of year makes for really blue skies. I actually had a number of images to choose from as Drama Teen gets a few days off school for Fall Break and we usually take off work for a short family trip to someplace.
I love the contrast of the red, orange and yellow against the blue. This image comes from one of those Fall Break trips, but I'm not sure where we were. I do remember it was a small town in Missouri. My Guy thinks it was Washington, Missouri, which is likely as it's been a favorite destination. Washington sits at the eastern end of Missouri's Wine Trail and is a good start or end to a trip down the trail.
That's it for my Foto Finish this week. Check out the other images posted over at Cat Patches.
My last Foto Finish post was on September 1st. That seems like an eon ago. Cat Patches is back from her wanderings, so Foto Finish is back this week. The theme for this week is "Cold". She picked this theme before she left on vacation, but it's a timely pick for this morning, it's 41 F now. The projected high is in the fifties. That's a marked cool down for us. My Guy realized this morning that he needs to get the furnaces checked before we start them up for the winter.
This image seemed to best reflect the chosen theme of "Cold".
These icicles are hanging off the barn at my in-law's farm. Note these aren't melting. This was just after Christmas 2010. It wasn't the coldest December on record, but it was definitely colder than normal in Missouri that year. I'm not usually one to walk in the cold, but it had snowed just a dusting not long before and it was really beautiful out in the early morning light.
It's been a busy week and it will be busy this evening as Drama Teen's school has Fun Night tonight. My Guy and I are "fill ins", taking shifts at the various activities that aren't already covered. I expect to be working from 7 till 10, then helping with the take down. So I'm taking this morning off to get caught up on blogs and do a bit of sewing. Plus I'll be checking to see what other shivery pictures show up on Foto Finish over at Cat Patches.
I've been given permission to forgo any labor today so I can play in my sewing room. What a nice way to start a weekend. No big plans for us this weekend. Considering we were all in bed fairly early last night, I think we all need a "down" weekend. But before I can head in the direction of the sewing room, a "wet" photo has to be found for today's Foto Finish.
One thing that continues to amaze me each week as I get ready to write this post is how the week's theme affects what photos catch my eye. I try not to start with a preconceived notion of what I'll post. Drama Teen is a swimmer, so I have lots of pool shots. But is that really the best interpretation of the theme? If I had not found anything in the files, then I'd definitely have done the obvious, but it's fun to find something unexpected in the files.
What's more wet than water droplets? I have no idea what plant this is. It may be a tulip leaf, but it doesn't have the right color. At any rate, I really like the droplets. They look like little crystals sitting there in the sun. There had been a heavy dew the night before and everything was wet. The knees of my jeans stayed wet for hours after our morning photo expedition that day.
Now it's time for breakfast and then I'll adjorn to the sewing room. I'm contemplating staying in my PJs for the day as one way of celebrating Labor Day weekend. Enjoy your weekend, but do check out the other wet and wonderful shots posted over at Cat Patches.
Do you ever feel like Mother Nature just likes to tease us? It's been cloudy for 2 days, but we've not seen much rain out of those clouds. Well at least temperatures have been reasonable the last week.
Today's suggested Foto Finish theme is "funny". After a bit of looking in the files, I came across this shot.
I was on my way to work one October morning a couple of years ago and noticed the van in the lane next to me. If it hadn't been the week of Halloween, I would probably would have been more horrified than amused. Just goes to show that comedic timing is everything.
That's it for me this week. Get your funny bone tickled by checking out all the humorous images over at Cat Patches.
I'm posting just a bit late this morning. For some mysterious reason, my lap top will not connect to the Internet. My Nook and My Guy's desk top computer will connect just fine, but my computer tells me the router isn't working. I'm hoping the live in computer guru can fix it once he gets home from his bike ride. For the moment, I've appropriated the desk top.
Barbara over at Cat Patches has suggested "Where I Live" as today's Foto Finish theme. After a bit of file browsing and consideration, I decided that this image gives a good sense of where I live.
The view is from the east looking west towards downtown (those little bumps in the horizon are some of the taller downtown buildings). The photo dates from February 2011 when we had a record low of -29 F and lots of snow. This view is less than a mile from our house. Out here on the east side of town, it's relatively flat, as most people expect Oklahoma to be. If you go west of town, you'll run into the Osage Hills (that little hump to right of the buildings in the photo). That's not a fun drive when it's been snowing as the roads leading out of town that way are pretty hilly and very curvy. Deep winter and mid summer don't look much different around here, it's pretty brown (unless we have snow on the ground). Spring and Fall can be spectacular, but some years seem to last only a week or two at most.
That's one view of where I live. Take a peak over at Cat Patches to check out some other natural habitats.
I made it home late yesterday afternoon. It's good to be home and sleeping in my own bed again. After a week away, it's time to get back into the normal household rhythm which for me is laundry. I was all caught up before I left now I'm behind again!
This week's theme for Foto Finish is "Hot". If you follow my rantings and ravings with any form of regularity, you know that it has been 110 F plus hot in Oklahoma this summer on top of being just bone dry. I seriously contemplated using a picture of our dead yard for today's shot, but couldn't find a way to make it look very interesting. Instead I found this shot taken in August of 2009.
In Oklahoma the heat builds all day, reaching it's peak sometime between 5 and 6 PM. It doesn't really start cooling off until after the sun goes down at about 8:30. This isn't a technically great photo, but for me it conveys the feeling of the unrelenting heat that's present even at sunset.
Oklahoma caught a break yesterday with a cold front passing through the state. The low this morning was 53F. We've not seen temps that low since the spring. Hopefully the extreme heat is over and we'll just see plain old hot until autumn arrives.
To see more hot stuff, check out the photos over at Cat Patches.
As much as I like summer, I'm not a fan of August in Oklahoma. It's typically our hottest month and that's proving to be the case this year. Oklahoma's temperatures made the national news as it hit 113 F in Oklahoma City for the first time since the dust bowl. Just walking from the building to the car after work is enough to drench one in sweat. Many at work have been talking about how ready they are to get to Labor Day. You'd expect that since it's our next 3 day holiday weekend, but it's also when the summer heat typically breaks and we get noticeably cooler temps. Hopefully we don't have 4 more weeks of 100 plus temps and we'll get some relief before then.
Unfortunately it's so hot, even going to the lake or the pool isn't really fun. Drama Teen volunteers at the local summer camp program and during their afternoon excursion to the pool on Monday, she almost passed out due to overheating. She's fine, they got her cool and hydrated pretty quickly. With that incident flitting through my mind, looking through the files for water pictures isn't doing a lot to cool me off this week. So this week I decided to go with interesting rather than cooling.
This shot was taken at Lake Murray last year during vacation. The water is so clear that it doesn't really look like water, the breaks just look like imperfections imposed over the rippled sand.
Stay cool, stay hydrated, enjoy your weekend and check out all the other wet images over at Cat Patches.
It was a good morning for sleeping in, so I did. It seems like we've been going 90 miles an hour for the last few weekends. The only thing on tap for this weekend is a trip to Tulsa to get school uniforms for the Drama Teen. Only 2 and half weeks till school starts. Hard to believe that the summer is drawing to a close. Though you certainly can't tell that by the outside temperature. It's hot, which is something you expect for late July early August in Oklahoma. But boy it sure seems like it's been 100 plus degrees forever.
To escape the hot and the dry for a bit, I took a journey back in the photo files looking for something yellow, as well as, cool and wet for today's Foto Finish. I didn't have to go back far to find what I was looking for.
These rain soaked tulips were in front of the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. We were there over spring break back in March of this year. It rained pretty much the whole week. A week of rain sounds like a pretty good deal at the moment. We've had just enough rain the wet the ground and add a layer of humidity to the just plain hot.
That's it for me this week. Hop over to Cat Patches to see more sunny yellows.
It's another swim meet morning. This is the last meet of the season, unless the Drama Teen makes a qualifying time for the Age Group meet next weekend. She's not even close at this point, but she has been known to pull off the unexpected.
This week's Foto Finish was taken during one of Drama Teen's unexpected successes. Participation in Science Fair is mandatory at her school, but entry into the District Science Fair is optional, but it's worth extra points. She dutifully entered and ended up getting tapped to go to the State Science Fair. She and one other 7th grader from her class made the trip to the fair. Their science teacher was thrilled. She gave both girls roses after the judging was complete. Drama Teen was experimenting with her camera phone and the mirror. She was hoping to get a shot that would be cool wallpaper of her rose for her phone.
I love the look of concentration on her face and how it shifts a bit as you see it from two different angles simultaneously. DT didn't place at the State Fair, but she enjoyed the experience. Plus she's determined to go back next year and do better. I'm sure my kitchen table will yet again be pressed into service as a science lab starting some time in October.
That's it for me this week. It's time to get Drama Teen up and moving, plus pack up the swim bag. I'll have to wait till this evening to check out all the reflections posted over at Foto Finish, since there is no Internet access at the venue. Have a great Saturday and stay cool.
It's a swim meet morning, so I'll have to get moving in a bit. Not as early as usual since Drama Teen's not swimming this weekend due to a nasty sinus infection. She's been sick since Tuesday and finally turned the corner yesterday towards feeling decent. However her coach said he'd rather she fully recover so she can swim next weekend at the division meet. Consequently, we don't have to be at the pool until about 8:30 rather than the typical 7 am for warm ups.
Hopefully, I have time to get in a quick post on this week's Foto Finish theme, Summer's Here. This image seemed to fit the theme best:
Can you guess whose head is underneath those legs? Of course it's the Drama Teen. We spent a week at one of the state parks last year for vacation. One morning we headed out to the swim beach to just hang out and keep cool. Drama Teen spends a lot of time in the water due to swim practice, but she doesn't often get to just goof around in the water as she did that day. Unfortunately, DT's antics were cut short by an impending rain storm that rolled in late in the morning.
Time to get moving, I have a few things to do before we head over to the pool to help out with this morning's session of the swim meet. Have a great weekend. Check out all the other summer posts over at Cat Patches.
Foto Finish is back after being on hiatus for the month of July while it's hostess, Barbara at Cat Patches, was traveling in Ireland. Today's optional theme is travel. I've shared a lot of my travel shots over the last year and a half. We've not taken our vacation yet this summer, so I can't post any shots from that. As I looked back on our family travels over the years, I realize how they've changed. When My Guy and I started dating, we were still in school, so vacations were pretty simple. We didn't have the money to do much. Once I was out and working, we'd take a road trip in the summer to somewhere and stay for a few days. Then Kiddo (aka Drama Teen) came along not long after we moved to Texas. Since it was a 10 hour drive to my family's and a 15 hour drive to My Guy's family, most of our vacation time was used to go home for the holidays.
One nice thing about our time in Texas was that both of us worked a 9/80 schedule, which allowed us to take every other Friday off. During the spring, we'd always take one of those long weekends and go on a wildflower photo safari. We'd bundle Kiddo into the car and just drive the back country roads looking for fields of Blue Bonnets and Indian Paintbrush.
Some years we'd find lots of places to take photos, some years the pickings were slim. I never managed to get Kiddo to slow down enough for me to get the seemingly mandatory picture taken by any Texas parent of my kid in amongst the Blue Bonnets. But those weekend excursions took us all over the state, from Surfside to Sherman, from College Station to San Antonio.
Unfortunately, Oklahoma doesn't have such a profusion of wildflowers. Now many weekends are taken up with swim meets, volleyball tournaments and other Drama Teen activities. Life has changed yet again and so has our travel lifestyle. I'm sure it will change again once DT heads off the college.
That's it for me this week. I should really go finalize plans for this year's vacation. Visit Cat Patches this weekend and scope out the other links. Maybe you'll find next year's vacation spot.
I slept in this morning. If felt really good to not be in a rush to get out the door, get to the laundry etc. Drama Teen and I went out for a leisurely breakfast, something we very rarely do. We enjoyed the slow pace this morning, lingering over breakfast just talking about nothing in particular. She's going on a trip to Colorado sponsored by the school's science teacher, so I won't have her company for about a week. It was nice to have some quiet time before we gear up for all the prep and packing she'll need to do before she leaves on Monday.
The suggested topic this week for Foto Finish is "Gardening". With my black thumb, gardening is just something that doesn't happen much around here. Maybe because I'm so bad at the garden thing, I love visiting gardens when we go on vacation. A number of years ago, we spent a week in Oregon. One of the places I wanted to visit was the Portland Rose Garden. I was new to SLR digital photography, my Canon 20D was only about 2 weeks old when we made the trip, so I was still trying to figure out all the settings, so a number of my photos from that visit can be classed as "learning the camera shots". But I did get a couple of decent shots, including this one.
I have no idea what kind of flower this is. We don't have anything like it here in Oklahoma. I like the colors. The flower reminds me of a ballerina, it has such graceful lines.
This is the last Foto Finish until Barbara gets back from her quilty travel adventure next month. So wonder over to Cat Patches this week and get your Foto fix for the next 30 days.
Yesterday was the last day of school for the Drama Teen. I took the day off so I could attend the awards ceremony in the morning, then be back early in the afternoon to pick her and a friend up to celebrate at Cherry Berry. The school gives various academic awards, the DT brought home a couple of those. But the most fun are the awards the teachers give for some of the elective classes. Drama Teen snagged the "Best Actress" award from her Theatre class (her bloggy nick name is a very apt one indeed). We had girls night out afterward with a bit of shopping and then dinner. DT is a bit overwhelmed at the idea of being an 8th grader next year. To be honest, Mom's a bit wigged out too!
As I was mulling over this week's theme of "Pets" for Foto Finish, there were also thoughts of DT's school years wandering in and out as well. That brought to mind a picture that might work for today's post. But alas, I couldn't find it. It's possible that it's one of My Guy's shots. I did find another photo with a similar theme from the same year.
Unfortunately, I'm extremely allergic to animal dander, so it's difficult for us to have a dog or cat. DT made up for that by collecting the stuffed variety of critters. Her preferred "pets" were tigers (she dreamed big even back then). Somewhere in the second grade, she developed a strong affection for Scooby Doo as well. This picture was taken just after Christmas. The tiger to the right is Simba who was a new addition to her tiger family that Santa left under the tree at Grandma's. He was her sleeping buddy for years after.
That's it for Foto Finish this week. Check out all the other pet tails over at Cat Patches.
No road trips this weekend. This is the second weekend in a row where we get to stay home all weekend. I honestly can't remember the last time we had two weekends back to back where we didn't have to be on the road headed somewhere. It's nice. Hopefully over the summer we'll get a few more of these before volleyball season starts up. Does anyone know when archery season is? Drama Teen's school offered archery this year and hopes to have an archery team next year. Any guesses as to who has already signed up?
Cat Patches has suggested "stripes" as this week's Foto Finish optional theme. Not much in my photo files that fits with this theme. I did find a couple. One that would really be a stretch to consider as stripes and the other was an experiment that I'm not sure worked.
I liked the way the light leaked through the blinds, like it was trying to eat away the wood so it could break through and shine in unimpeded.
On a completely unrelated note. I entered a quilt in this week's Quilting Gallery "Quilts for Mom" contest. It's called June's Tulips, a quilt I made for my mother-in-law. I would appreciate your vote if you could take a few minutes to check out the contest (click here) and vote before Monday.
If you have a few more minutes, check out all the other stripes over at Cat Patches.
It's Saturday, but we have no place to go. Not that we don't have plenty to get done, but at least packing up the car and heading out to somewhere isn't on the to do list this weekend. Some sewing may actually get done too.
The suggested theme for today's post is "red". As I was waiting for the computer to boot, I tried to think where to look for red. For the life of me I couldn't think of anything red that had recently been the subject of a photograph. It came down to two choices, a red barn or this:
Flowers are my most favorite thing to photograph, so of course the tulip won out. This shot is another one from the Spring Break trip to Eureka Springs, AR. I had the umbrella to keep my head and the camera dry while stalking through the hotel garden snapping photographs, but the rest of me got pretty soaked. Still it was an enjoyable challenge to attempt to take good shots in the rain.
So do you have something red to share? If so, you should link up over at Cat Patches. Have a wonderful weekend.
