031/365

I ordered oatmeal without fruit.
Seriously?
I don't disklike fruit, I just don't want fruit in my oatmeal.
I think I got extra fruit.

030/365

I have been in a purging kick for quite a while. Our house and lives has become cluttered with too much stuff - you know the things you have but you don't LOVE! I have decided that we no longer have the space to spare or the time to dust things we don't LOVE. So while cleaning I remembered these two pictures I knew I had. Unfortunately I knew they were buried in an old file cabinet. Well the cabinet is now completely empty - ready for a good home and below are the attached pictures that came from the inspiration of two old polaroids.

In case you are wondering the picture on the right is my first day of Kindergarten in my very favorite - at the time =0) - dress with Ronald McDonald on the pocket. (Got to love those shoes right? They are hushpuppies, it would have been nice if someone would have told me to pull up my socks.) The photo on the left is me in the coolest overalls ever! They were covered in rainbows and rhinestones - seriously I was bling before bling knew was bling was =)

029/365 Happy BIrthday 'Bean

029/365

028/365

Sometimes a girl just needs a burger.

027/365

Not the picture that I planned, but sure glad it is the dinner that I get to eat. (Thanks Chef Dave)

025/365

happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday wen-deeeeeee, happy birthday to me.

(Okay actually I purchased this with Christmas money from Dave's dad, but it seemed stupid to say happy christmas to me happy christmas to me - you get the picture, and the cupcake would have looked stupid too.)

024/365

Citizen Hotel through the fog and trees from my desk.

023/365

End of another week. This project has certainly made me aware of the passage of time, specifically how fast time is passing.

Even though my birthday was a couple weeks ago, I am just now getting around to making my birthday cupcakes. (The reason I make my own cake is for another post =). Here are two shots of the finished product - the first is the original pretty pink cupcake goodness. The other pic is after a couple photoshop filters are applied.

022/365

Winter Tree.

I went looking for the moon and found something a little closer to home.

Tripod. No Flash. Lit from behind (very bright porch light).

021/365

View from dinner.
Petaluma, CA

020/365 - Wow!

Lots of people are doing this on the group, had to give it a try even though I don't have the best lens for this sort of shot. That (thanks to my pop) will be coming next week!

019/365

I love love love old signs. I swore when I headed out to snap this photo that the sign was red. Even the poor friend I drug with me, with the promise of lunch, thought it was red at some point. Oh well, I still love it. This is with PS Old Paper Filter applied. Stay tuned you may see this pic again in a future collection.

018/365 Protester

018/365

I work at City Hall in Sacramento,CA; which is also just block away from the State Capitol. Protests and protesters are a common sight; this however, was new. I haven't seen the grim reaper come out for a protest before. He must feel strongly.

017/365 Itsy Bitsy....

017/365
I am not sure what stuck me more. That it was an itsy bitsy teeny weenie ... well you know; or that they are selling bikini's in January.

016/365 She is so over it.

Sabina (our CCI breeder) has been photographed to many times to count. I have documented her whole life in photos and well she is pretty much over it. She will put up with it and hold a command for no other reason than she is supposed to. I am not even sure if she thinks the treats after are worth putting up with me.

Jill introduced me to the Hipstamatic yesterday - a very cool camera app (based on the original camera that never made it big time). Unfortunately it is just for iPhone users. I found "retrocamera" for android and after several shots of the Bean, it is no the POTD. I hope you enjoy it more than she did.

015/365 Heading In

They had the horses out stretching their legs today at the racetrack where we have puppy class.

014/365 Twinkle Twinkle

014/365

I love lights, especially twinkle lights and I don't think that they should be reserved just for Christmas. One of the first things we did after our backyard make over was string lights all over the back yard. This year we upgraded to LEDs! I have lights in the house too for a variety of holidays, I am sure that they will be making an appearance through out the year. These are lights in our back yard (because I was up before it was completely light out, and the timer is wacky) this morning.

013/365 Keeping the Kids In...

or the bad element out? (013/365)

This is the gate to a now closed pre-school. I always thought it was weird to see the concertina wire over the rainbow. Today the building looks cold and old. When there were children I don't think I noticed the wire as much.

012/365 Tuffy Tough

012/365 Our pups (well Sabina) is quite the power chewer. We came across Tuffy Toys and they just love them. The green one - captain kurklops is Sabina's and the purple one is Lil Pete - that one belongs to Lacinda. They are more "play toys" than chew session toys but either way hold up very well!

011/365 Evidence A Puppy Lives Here

007 & 110/365 Noticing New Things

Well I was reminded of the photographers rule today - always be ready. Or in my case make sure the camera is ready as after I got my first shot off I promptly ran out of batteries. However, I am still sort of happy with today's photo. I wanted to take a few other since the reflection in the glass was so great so I will have to try again when I am at this location next week. This project certainly has me looking and noticing more things than ever before.

It appears I neglected to post 007, rest assured despite being sick and miserable I managed to get a pretty good shot and did post it to my photo group on flickr. Since both of us are sick and neither feeling like cooking I stopped for some fast food. Desperate to get my shot of the day I looked up and saw the reflection of my brake lights on the metal paneling in the drive through. I must have looked crazy digging around for my camera and holding up the line, but here is the shot none the less. 

009/365 Spring is Sprung (well trying too)

Early daffodil sprouts. I am very excited.

008/365 Puppies!!

For those of you who know me it would be rather easy to just put a puppy photo everyday. I am going to do my best not to resort to that - unless of course I catch the girls doing something fabulously cute. For those who don't know me, we are lucky enough to be part of a wonderful group of people who volunteer for Canine Companions for Independence. CCI provides highly trained service dogs to people with disabilities at no cost. My husband and I are raising our second dog Lacinda, and have our first pup at home as she is now a CCI breeder. So I am promising not to fill my days with gratuitous puppy shots. Today we were at puppy class when I was able to get a good shot of Ms. Rayleigh!


Although I do want to do a series of Sabina (our CCI breeder) sleeping, as her face is so wrinkly.

006/365 Library Card!

As part of our scaling back, belt tightening I haven't been indulging in one of my favorite passions - reading. The cost of books and my desire to read the latest and greatest can be a bit costly. Oh and I can plow through a 400 page paperback in less than a weekend. My parents and I have been trading books, but while I love my Dad the man will read ANYTHING. A few trades ago I got a bag full of books about the wild west and indians. I however just gave them a big old bag of good stuff, all current mostly Oprah book club list sort of stuff.

It has been ages and ages since I have had a library card. The Sacramento Central Library is right across the street from my office. I can see the building from my desk. I figured I might as well check it out. It isn't as if I haven't been to a library. Sabina and I did the "read to a dog" program a few times here in Elk Grove, but I haven't thought about checking anything out. As part of this photography thing I wanted a couple books - went to Borders - way to expensive. So off to the library I went. Didn't find exactly what I wanted but was able to order them from another branch and have them delivered downtown! Pretty excited.

004/365 Sister Cities

This is a new sign at Sacramento City Hall.

004/365 Dave thinks I am crazy

Dave is my husband. He is probably the most tolerant man on the planet. It seems every time he sees me I am doing something weird and just mutter it is for what I am now calling "the project" interchangeably with "my project".

Tonight required my sick and cranky self to find all the stuff for this picture and get it set up. (not the camera as it is now a fixture again on the counter - as it should be.) It took about 40 shots and half hour of moving, blowing, lighting, blowing out, re-lighting, turning on lights in the house, turning off lights in the house. Did I mention he is tolerant?

Move to the couch, what are you doing? Working on the project....

001-003

Here are the first pics...

001 - A picture of my much neglected scrapbook supplies. In finding my happy, I am planning to utilize  these with some of the fabulous photos I know that I will take. As I am person who scraps all of life - the good and bad -  some of the not so great photos will probably make it to a scrapbook as well.

002 - This is of a carnival glass vase that belonged to my grandmother. It lives year round on our piano, but at Christmas I fill it with christmas ornaments and other Christmas decorations. 

 003 - Today's picture is of water droplets on our stainless bbq outside this morning. I cropped the photo and applied a PS filter. A significant part of this challenge is for me to learn more about photography, editing, using effects, and learning from the other photographers on my 365 Challenge Group. 

Hmmm....

Last year brought many wonderful things; however, it was also one of the more challenging years in recent memory. I have wanted to do the 365 PhotoJournal Challenge for a couple years, but convinced myself that I didn't have time. Looking back I probably didn't have time, because I allowed my time to be spent on, in retrospect, things that were not things that contribute to "my happy". 

Many years ago I met a very wise woman - Coach Burke. When I, as all teenagers do, got to the rough patch she told me that I was responsible for my "happy." (Among other things, like get off the pitty pot there is a long line behind you) She told me that I need to care for "my happy," that I am ultimately responsible for it, it is my job to nurture it, define it for myself, don't allow others to chip away at it, and most importantly that I couldn't rely on others to be the sole source of it either. I am sad to say that I didn't manage my happy very well last year. 

One thing that I know for sure is that I love to take pictures. National Geographic won't be calling anytime soon, but no one runs when I show up with my camera either. So to feed my happy and work toward some healthy balance I am committing to the challenge. I am late in getting the blog started but not to the picture taking. I will be posting here everyday, I hope they bring you some joy. 

(Special thanks to Jill for the final inspiration to get off my duff and do this)