An Awesome View of Life

Pick. Up. Sticks. Loving this shot of a bunch of toothpicks (which we keep in a vintage orange juice glass).   Day 365 of my second year of doing this 365 Project thing.  730 straight days.  2014 wasn't as easy as 2013 but I am not too disappointed with the end results of this year's project.  I created a beautiful calender of my photos which means I had at least 13 photos I liked enough to share with my family. (: And I do see a definite improvement in my "skills" as a photographer.  At least I am not always just a picture taker.  ha! Wishing all of you who take the time to visit my blog a very Happy New Year.  Love and Peace to all of you.

Orange Vortex Okay! FIVE shots to get what I wanted.  Love all the details. I think I have done shots of this pendant light in the past but don't think I have one this cool.   The lamp is actually a deep red with flecks of black.  This particular shot is of the inside of the light.  I love the electricity in this photo.  It looks like you could leap through to a different dimension.

Frosted Pine Just pretty.  (:

My Genealogy Corner Fun day of rearranging and reorganizing my "office" space in the corner of our family room.  My wonderful Christmas present is hanging on the wall (the poster of Germany not the calendar of my photos).  The bookcase is full of my research and reference books. The poster will be framed tomorrow.  Now I just need to convince my hubby to build me a new desk with matching bookcase.  I drew up plans for one this afternoon but don't think I got a positive reaction from him.  ha!  

Flurries A pretty drive-by shot of the beginning of the snow.

It takes a village... As seen on Buffalo Lake on Christmas morning!

Bah humbug! This poor little guy didn't seem to be enjoying Mother Nature's attempt at giving us a white Christmas!  (:

Recycled This photo is from last Christmas Eve.  I did go and attempt to take a "brown" version of this scene tonight but without the snow it was just another Christmas tree.  So I recycled last year's photo.  (: Merry Christmas everyone!

Enlightened Venting A brief trip into the city this morning produced a handful of unique pictures. This one dryer steam illuminated by two spotlights.  (one of which doesn't seem to be one but hard to tell) Ready for some sunshine but won't hold my breath.  Pretty sure we won't see that until summer??  ):

Christmas Lights Another drive by shooting.  Christmas lights on a house we were driving past.  Kinda cool? ha!

Misty This was the extent of my adventure today.  My last thought before I fell asleep was that I should run away from home in the morning.  However, I actually slept in and it was snowing when I woke up.  Running away from home when it is snowing just didn't seem so appealing.  (: The shot I actually went out in the rain to get didn't turn out how I envisioned it. It was so very pretty in my mind but not so much in my camera. ha!  I saw the rain glistening on the branches out of the corner of my eye and took shots from 2 different angles.  This is the one that won.

Passing by... This wasn't much of a photo adventure.  Just the usual taking the camera with and snapping away on the way to the grocery store.  (: Not sure if the lights in the window are reflections or cars seen through the car.  I only took about 5 versions of this idea before I got what I wanted.  Good thing we had to wait through the entire light cycle.  

One more... from last night.  I've spent the past two days trying to fix a major issue with my family tree software.  I thought I had it fixed but...  ugh!  I give up.  This is a shot of the Dinky Dome on the U of M campus.  I like the bit of glow of the street light in the corner.  The sky was funky because we have had clouds and snow for at least a thousand days now and it just looks weird.  (:   Tomorrow I promise to be more creative with my photos.  

I'm lovin' it. University of Minnesota campus.  I don't love McDonald's at all but this was in my shot for better or for worse.  

Best toy ever. This little dolly loves to play in this box.  And Grammy loves this baby more than anything.  I just can't help it. (:

Tracks. Light. This is a sideways shot of our garage floor.  Wet foot prints.  Tire tracks.  Painted outlines.  And the light on the garage door opener reflecting on the wet floor.

Busted There isn't much to say about this photo.  The breakage was fairly recent.  I think it was the bright orange that caught my eye.  I love this photo. (:

Message in a bottle? This beautiful purple bottle was on the shore of the Mississippi River.  But there wasn't a message.  Fun  to see a bit of color that wasn't orange or green.

We're off to see... Fun adventure today along the Mississippi River.  The lack of sunshine creates dull pictures but I did find some wonderful bits and pieces of color.  However, I chose this black and white shot for my photo today.   There is a color version of this photo but I liked the contrasts in this version the best.

  The same but not... Same shot.  One in color.  One in black and white, below. Today's adventure took us to one of our more favorite county parks.  When we got there road into the heart of the park was gated closed.  We parked the car and trekked into the park.   It was a bit creepy.  It was so very quiet and it felt like we were trespassing.  But kind of nice to be somewhere so very quiet. Even though the color photo is the first photo, I like the black and white one much better.

Latest Technology! Christmas ornament secret camera.  Oh wait that's just my camera lens reflected in a Christmas ornament.  Sorry but I find this a bit funny!  (:

The Dark and the Light of it. While cooking dinner I saw this reflection and thought it might turn out pretty cool if I took a black and white photo. Simple.  But made me smile.  And we all know if it doesn't at least make me smile it doesn't make it to my blog.  (:

Clairvoyant?  Is there a new project for me in the near future?  This family tree book has been in my keeping for several years.  I've added my branch of the tree to my online tree but haven't added much of any of the other branches.   There is another project I would like to do connected to the Winter family as well.  Both might be good projects to tackle this winter.  (:

Sewing tutorial In order to construct my little project I used my Kindle to view the tutorial.  I'm still a "paper in hand" kind of person but these instructions would have taken pages and pages of paper so...   Today's creating was accompanied by a little Linkin Park.  So all in all it was a great day!  

The Beginning... About to start a new project.  At this point in time I've actually finished this project.  Photos to come.  I need a model for them and she will be here in the morning.  (:

Ho! Ho! Ho! This is my favorite Santa from my very large collection.   This week I kept telling the adorable grand baby that Santa says "Ho! ho! ho!"  She can't say it exactly but does more of a ha, ha, ha!  But definitely has the cadence of it down. Love that baby!  (:

Funny before... So I was walking up the driveway and saw the light on the garage door opener through the window and decided it might be a pretty funny photo.  I laughed the entire time I was trying to take this and the funnier thing is I still think it is a very funny photo. The first attempt was all crooked and the angle was pretty strange.  Which of course was funny.  Then I stood on my tippy toes to take this one.  This one was funnier because you can see just the very top of my head in the bottom of the window. Don't you just love when you can make yourself laugh?  This funny moment or two or three helped make for a much better creative mood today.  I wish I could share what I made today but they are a Christmas present and will have to wait until later to show them off.

Clearly a Red Green Moment By now you should know I love the comedy "The Red Green Show".  Here is yet another Red Green Moment.  This time it involves red and green round Christmas bulbs in my antique coffee jar.  Love the colors and love the textures.

Up Light My new floor lamp. Love the angle of the shot.

Thinking... its time to make a change.  Time to be true to myself.  Maybe there I will be able to say "no"?  There's just so many wrong things going on right now.  All of which make this seem like an impossibility.  It WILL all work out how it is suppose to work out, when it is suppose to.  But... That was pathetic but it is how it is today.  Morning will bring a new attitude.  I promise.  (:

Texas Roadhouse Another drive by shoot.  This is our local Texas Roadhouse.  Love all of the shapes.  And today is day number 700!  The last few months have been harder than I thought.  But I am not beating myself up over it.  I wandered through my blog over the weekend and am a bit sad by how much more creative I was last year and early this year but life has gotten busy and other things are more important.  (:

You Light up my... Love this photo of the wall light in my Dad's basement stairwell.  Taken from directly under the light.  You can even see the spiral of the bulb.

Twinkly Red Green Moment

  Wishful thinking For the past couple of weeks I've wanted to take this photo.  Tonight I had the perfect opportunity.  I love all the lighting on this patio it makes it seem like you could enjoy a conversation here.  If only it wasn't snowy, cold and very windy.

Let the game begin. This family was across the lake attempting to shovel a place big enough to play a game of hockey.  This is what Thanksgiving is about. I miss the traditional Thanksgiving football game with my cousins.

pain Long busy day.  If I hadn't been so busy this morning this would have been a perfect day to walk in the pretty falling snow but...  So I snapped a couple of photos of this leaf weighted down by the snow not able to drift away in the wind.  I felt its pain.  (:

Family - The black and white of it. I'm not sure what I want to say.  I'm not sure there are words that express how the events in our world have affected our family. We are all angered with the lack of justice shown in our country, once again. I guess I just want to see peace and justice in our country for all our people.  But mostly for our black men to be treated with respect.  To not be provoked.  To not be accused of things they aren't guilty of.  And to receive justice when they are wronged.   I want ALL of our young men to step up and be good fathers.  Teach their children about equality.  Teach them about tolerance.  Teach them about how hatred destroys.  Teach them how good our world can be. That it is fair and just. And to tell them they are the key. This is what I want from all fathers of all races in our country.  But until our country treats ALL of them as equals they will not treat each other as equ...

Blessing. In reality having some delivery person total our garage door and opener was a blessing.   

Sloppy View Another photo from last night's drive by shooting adventure.  Most of what I did was in black and white.  The fog and the glare of headlights look so much different when not in color. This is a shot out the windshield just after the wipers had been on.  We were behind a car at a red light.  The bright light at the bottom of the photo is the car's brake light in its back window. This is another photo that I really like.  Two in one adventure?  Wow!  (:

T. Rex  One of my favorite things to do is night time drive by shoots.  I leave my camera on normal daytime settings and shoot while riding in the car.   The T.Rex figures are actually the lights in a parking lot. The pickup truck in the middle of all of this just adds to the humor of this photo.   This has to be one of my more favorite photos in quite awhile.  Love it!

Reflective Blue For some reason we have this blue reflective stake in our front yard.  Today when I went to the mailbox the sun was shining through it and I decided to take a picture.  Really feeling my photos have been extremely lacking in creativity in this year's 365Project but I have a few days left in the year.  I just need the time.  But it is what it is for now.  (:

Winter Shadows Another brutally cold day here in Minnesota.  There was no way I was going out there to do anything.  So this photo was taken from the family room bay window.  Pretty sorry I know.  ha! And another day of baby photos that are blurred because the little stinker moves way too fast. (:

Just hangin' out... The subject of my photo shoot today was suppose to be Mara Joy but the second she saw the camera come out she crawled over to me and sat in my lap.  I have a handful of blurry photos of her because she just wouldn't stop and be still.   While sitting in my lap she got to "help" Grammy take these two photos.  She found it so very funny to see Pop and Olaf in the camera screen. She squealed in delight. (: And I am so amazed she kept her feet still long enough to get the photo below. Striped

Seasons This leaf caught my eye while sewing.  Hoping we would get a bit of sunshine I waited and waited but finally gave in and took a handful of photos.  This isn't what I wanted but I do love the leaf caught in the snow.  The pretty red berries just a splash of color.

Blue Eyes... Unfortunately this was not a planned selfie.  I was so busy shooting what was outside my car window that I didn't even notice all of the reflections in the window. The entire windshield is reflected in the side window.  I think the rear view mirror is in there as well.  This actually turned out pretty cool even with the blue eyed photo bomber in it.  (:

Bits of color It still can be pretty here once it snows?  Another photo from a couple of days ago.  Too dang cold to go out on an adventure today.  Besides I was busy finding exciting information about my great-great grandparents who immigrated from Norway in 1875.  Way too much fun!  ha!

Glitter This is rather lame but...  

Late Afternoon... This location was not my first choice for an afternoon walk.  The county park we wanted walk in had closed gates today.  Not sure why they hadn't taken time to plow the roads but it forced us to find another place.   The sun was lower in the sky by the time we got to this park which made this path prettier than it really was.  The next time it is snowing I will be out in the middle of it taking photos.