11/20 Partners in the Happiest Place

In the Happiest Place?

11/20 Give Thanks for Companions

Animals / Friends / Partners

We used our last passes for Disney on Thursday of this week. The temperature was suppose to be in the seventies but it seemed to be barely in the sixties. I was taking the obligatory picture of my husband in front of the castle when another tourist offered to take our picture. The picture came out good and check, it's done. We joke about families visiting  Disney since the flights we take to Orlando have plenty of young families going and after our visit, we decided that we were glad to not have a toddler or baby with us. How relaxing of a vacation can that be? We decided that a child needs to be able to read so they can enjoy and remember. Considering it was November, there were a lot of kids and strollers everywhere. By four it wasn't the happiest place in the world for many of the guests when  exhaustion had set in. There were fireworks in Epcot at 9 pm, but we left by 7 pm because we were cold and tired. My favorite part of the day was the dolphin training demonstration in Epcot and Marc enjoyed the rides. He especially liked being the first in line at Space mountain when we happened to be there at the right time when the ride re-opened. 

11/14 to 11/18 Thankful to be Caught up!!!!

Thankful for the Quiet Times

11/14 Give Thanks for Quiet Times

Solitude / Relax / Quiet Spot

My quiet spot here with a book and cozy afghan. This morning I comfortably read a book and contemplated taking a nap until I realized that I had too many things to do today. (After I had already golfed 18 holes of course) I shot quite a few of the same scene focusing on different elements and ended up using the above photo taken with the 100 mm macro lens. I liked the combination of textures with the table, couch, afghan and pillows along with the cup of coffee and book that set the scene. The text was added with PSE10, I had the time to play with photos finally!

Pelican Landing

11/15 Give Thanks for the Beauty of Nature

Animals / Natural / Alive

Posting a picture like this makes me think of what I would be able to get for an animal shot in NH this week. Last Friday on the boat ride, I caught this shot just as the pelican landed and shook off the water. The pelican is graceful as it flies along the waves, but what a klutzy dive when they go in for a fish. When my friend K was here, the pelicans were her favorite birds and she was on the watch constantly for her favorite birds. 

Today on the golf course, I once again hit a ball within 10 feet of a sunning alligator. With the iPhone, I couldn't get close for the shot and wasn't happy with the photo. You can tell it's an alligator, but there too many shadows. 

Pelican with lightroom post processing using Eric Kim Porta Punch preset

Homemade Soup

11/16 Give Thanks for Home Cooking

Homemade / Family Recipe / From Scratch

I made this Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla soup in the crockpot last week and when my friend was here, it was good to come home after a busy day to a home cooked meal. I knew that my husband would like this recipe and made sure to save a batch of it for when he was here. We enjoyed it today after 36 holes of golf. It is a soup that I will make again and it is now pinned in my soup board on Pinterest. After a month of traveling, he is happy to have home cooked meals and we loved the pulled chicken that a friend, D sent home with me after a dinner eaten at her home here in Florida. Everyone is getting ready for holidays at home and cleaning out their refrigerators. The pulled chicken was also a crock pot recipe using a mccormick seasoning package, it made a great hot sandwich. Now I am on the lookout here for a small crockpot similar to what I have at home for leftovers. 

Baby Raccoons Missing their Mom

11/17 Give Thanks for Comfort

Cozy / Warmth / Content

I could be reaching for this prompt on the shot above, but it was a warm day yesterday and the 4 babies were lounging under a bush near the pool. The suggestion for this prompt was all about taking pictures of soup or soup cans, really? That was so yesterday for me and I decided that this shot of the baby raccoons needed to be in my Capturemy365 collection. Today the weather turned in the afternoon, and we were lucky to finish 36 holes of golf as we saw lightning in the distance while on the last hole and  the rain started when we were in the parking lot.

The 4 baby raccoons were seen the day before and luckily nobody here fed them and when there was no sight of their mother, neighbors worked on taking care of the babies. I know that the golf course has been trapping raccoons because of the damage they cause on the greens and one of the neighbors had their boat cushions torn apart so who knows where the mother ended up. When I saw them on Sunday, I googled the county wild life services and forwarded the link to a neighbor. Another neighbor ended up catching them with a blanket, gloves and cat carrier and all were brought safely to a wildlife animal hospital. I am thankful that we are in a community where people care about animals. It's a fine line when you know that the animals are going through the dumpsters at night, but when they are this close to the water they are going to become somebody's dinner. 

A few dolphin shots from this weekend, if you look closely at the top right picture, this dolphin is playing with his food. They were jumping but every time I went out with my camera, they would stop.

The End of the Stormy Weather

11/18 Give Thanks for The Final Stages

The End / Latest / Conclude

Today I got caught up with all the blog posts for the Captureyour365 photos that I took from 10/26 to today. The prompt for today was fitting and sure, I didn't know what the picture would be until we went out in the afternoon for a ride. This prompt suggestion was appropriate for me today, " Prompts are meant to guide you, challenge you, and to get you to pick up the camera no matter what you shoot!" 

I did not bring my big camera but had the iPhone along with me to get this shot. When we were driving north on the main road, I could see the skies to the west and took a left. At the end of this street, I captured the end of the storm at the end of the day. With my DSLR, I would have been able to get the beams of light from the clouds, but I am happy with the composition of this shot. Compared to other parts of the country, I know that the weather here can't really be considered cold, however for Florida, 52 degrees with a wind chill to the 40s is very cold. It was a good day to stay inside and get caught up with my photography. 

It was also a good afternoon to stop by the local brewery and enjoy some Cocoa beach micro brews. Nice to have a laid back day!

Weekend 10-11 to 10-13

Vibrant Fans

10/11 Photograph Vibrant

Lively / Colorful / Vivid

It was more than vibrant at the football game, it was packed stadium of Hawkeye fans. The day before the game, I had gone to the website for the tickets and saw that there was a recommendation for what color to wear for our section. We had black and my husband borrowed a shirt while I bought a huge, comfy sweatshirt with the old time logo for the hawkeyes. It was fun to experience the homecoming scene in Iowa City where everyone and their brother came out for the parade the night before to the next morning's game. My son's girlfriend kept saying to us, "you have no idea what it's going to be like". And she was right, from the crowds at the parade where I felt like I was in a scene from Animal House to the amount of tailgating and fans the next morning. There were vendor tents all over the place and we had no problem finding most anything hawk eye. 

We had a great time in Iowa City where we got the grand tour of the university and town, along with a ride to where my son's girlfriend (K) works in the next town over. It's nice to see a town that works with the school community. A good example of this would be the excitement of the kids that K takes care of at the pre-school, they were all excited about the homecoming parade. We even had a free breakfast at the law school tailgating event put on by a local law firm.

Checking out the Iowa Hawkeye Merchandise the night before with everyone else in Iowa City

Game time and the fans waiting for the homecoming parade.

Mutant Fall Flower

10/12 Photograph Leaves

Changing colors / Nature / Blade

Why is this a mutant? It was once a store bought Chrysanthemum that has gone wild in our front garden. I love the the colors of the flowers and will be using these for the macro project for October. The leaves here all have spots and are just about gone by so my choice for nature was this beautiful flower. 

Fall Trip Fun

10/13 Photograph Frolic

Merriment / Fun / Joke

For today's prompt, I went back and used a picture from our weekend trip to Chicago. This is our first look of the Bean in Millennium Park, or Cloud Gate. It is a huge reflective bean that is a lot of fun to look at from different angles to see reflections of the city, sky, clouds and all the other tourists. 

10-8 to 10-10 Three days of Catch up

Family Running

10/8 Photograph a Race

Competition / Beginning / Meet

There used to be a time when I could get a picture of cross country race and my youngest son running during any week in the Fall, but those 5 years are past. Now I settle for quickly turning on a walk to catch the backs of this family running. Photographed with the iPhone 6.

Distorted Buildings Reflected

10/9 Photograph Distorted

Askew / Contorted / Crooked

What a great prompt to have for our first day in Chicago. There were so many photo opportunities   for distortion views while taking the Architecture boat tour on the river.  This building above was built specifically to reflect the skyline including the blue of the sky. It was a beautiful day just as it was reflected.  I will have to do another blog post just of a few of the photos from our trip. 

Miles of Fields and Sky Seen from the Highway

10/10 #Off Prompt

Another good prompt for the weekend! These shots were taken from the car during our drive from Chicago to Iowa City. The views of the corn fields were expansive with miles of fields which make the farms here look like like specks. It was a four hour drive and we stopped at the Antique Archaeology Store from the American Pickers tv show just over the state line in Iowa. I was expecting to see more of their finds rather than a bunch of tourist items like tee-shirts, shot glasses and cards. The yard outside of the garage looked like some of the yards of New England.

First Weekend of October

Fall Flower Bokeh

10/3 Photograph Out of Focus

Bokeh / Blurry / Ill-defined

Initially, I was going to use this picture of my next door neighbor's dog, Chloe, but wanted to have more of the dog in the picture. It's kind of hard to get a dog pose, especially one that is bigger than me.  The colors in the background for the dog photo are out of focus and to me, it looks like Chloe is in front of a scenery background similar to those at a store photo studio. 

When I got home from the morning walk, I saw the light on the flower above and knew that I could get bokeh while isolating the focus on the flower. And yes, I had to fix a petal and add a texture to soften the background.

Serious, Very Serious Dish Drying

10/4 Photograph a Chore

Routine / Duty / Responsibility

This is the "selfie" for the month, at least the prompt is on a Saturday and I wasn't the only one who took way too many pictures of a chore to get an acceptable picture. The narratives in the Captureyour365 for the day was amusing as we all spent more time on the picture taking than the actual chore. There's plenty I can say about this photo- yes, horizontal stripes do make you look larger, that's my story and I am sticking to it, yes, my kitchen was a bit messy for this photo, but I was in the middle of cooking- Potato Leek soup and Pumpkin bread and it's hard to take a picture of yourself when you are tall and in a narrow space. 

Fall Woods Portrait with Bokeh

10/5 Photograph Colored Bokeh

Tinged / Prism / Hued

Yes, another bokeh prompt, but I don't mind since the opportunity to get that sparkly, out of focused background is easy to do with the foliage color plus a sunny day. After a day of drizzle and chores, it was good to get out for a walk in the woods. We were heading up to the Lakes region later on in the day, but we did our little hike (2.4 miles) this morning at the Audubon Society. The last time I was there, it was all snow covered and today we got to enjoy a crisp, fall day. Lucky for me, my husband is good about posing and the bokeh in the picture above is the out of focus lighted leaves in the background.

On our way over to Wolfeboro, we finally went up to a scenic view point on the road that we have passed numerous times, it was worth the stop! Beautiful view of Lake Winnipesaukee.

Peak in a couple of days. View from the east side of the Lake.

Here are few of the shots from today's hike through the woods. ( I do like lightroom for editing faces, now if I could just learn how to get rid of the wrinkles….)

Up close Milkweed shots. I was glad to find a field of these on our walk out of the woods. I have been seeing some of these throughout the state, but never close enough to get a photo.

Fall Colors

Fall Colors - Old Grave Yard

10/1 Photograph Signs of Fall

Crisp Leaves / Changing Seasons / Colors

Yes, this picture looks familiar because it was taken yesterday and it's in the collage above. The weather for this prompt was rainy and overcast all day. I was hoping that the weather would be different where I work, but the south was very overcast and the picture was not good. Such a shame because there is such a great view of Mt. Sunapee. I did try to get an up close picture of a left, but all the leaves here have some type of fungus on them with spots on the leaves. Looking at this picture of the single leaf, it's not a bad shot, however, I like the background colors better in the photo above. 

Squash Mini-Harvest

10/2 Photograph Lines

Direction / Edge / Leading

The prompt for today was to have leading lines with examples in the Pinterest gallery of buildings, paths, train tracks and other images with strong lines. I thought I would get the lines from the table on the porch to show up better, however once I had the squash set up the lens I could see that I would lose the pumpkin top to show the lines. To get this shot, a tripod was used with the macro lens and I warmed it up a bit in lightroom. There may not be strong lines, but I really liked how the colors of the trees outside are muted with the window framing the shot. Now I just have to figure out how I am going to cook the two end squash! Tomorrow, the pumpkin will get roasted and made into bread and if there is some left over pumpkin, I may just make some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. 

I had thought that I would use this photo from our drive on Monday through the Monadnock region of the old time rake on the side of the building. However, I just didn't like that I only had part of the rake. This was leaning up agains the side of an "antique" store that had a lot of other junk at the bottom  of this shot. 

Today I worked from home on the King HenryVIII research for a couple of hours and I kept looking out the window hoping to see some wind. I didn't care that it was still a bit overcast, but I wanted the wind for my sail this evening with my friend K. It was her birthday earlier this week so I made dinner and bought the wine, such cute bottles! It was just a month ago that we went out and swam while sailing, tonight we were in layers, as you can see in my picture where I look huge! My friend was smart enough to bring a hat and gloves, at least I had on wool socks! It was another beautiful night for a more active sail as we had to change up the jib sail and watch out for the boom going back and forth. I know I don't have the terms right, but I am learning, I still like fluffing better than luffing when the sails start to flap….

The foliage was pretty and once again, hardly any boats on the lake. Hard to imagine that in 4 months they will be ice sailing on the same lake. 

Instagram shot Lighthouse

The First Photos of Autumn

September Sunset 

9/22 Photograph Goodbye

Farewell / Final / Seasons Changing

I hurried over to the Merrimack River hoping to get a shot of the sun setting with light reflecting off the capital, but I missed it. What little light there was had left by the time I got to the spot, there was not much of a sunset to be seen. This shot above is from my first sail at the beginning of September. It is a good representation of the seasons changing as this was taken after Labor Day and there are no other boats on the lake.

What I am Trying to Watch

9/23 Photograph Who

This One / That One / Which

The instructions for this prompt was to take a picture of a television screen. Who are you watching? Modern Family is one of my favorite shows, it's ridiculous with a good ensemble, just a fun show. I had not caught the first season and started watching after it started winning Emmys. I wanted to see what it was all about. Now I just watch rerun after rerun and was looking forward to new season, I was not disappointed last night. 

1% Milk- Getting my Calcium

9/24 Photograph The Number One

Prize / On a Sign / First

This prompt was a tough one trying to find the number one. When I add my snack in the afternoon, I noticed the #1 on the milk and I set up the shot. I used the macro lens at a higher aperture to get more detail. Back to counting calories and logging on MyFitnessPal which means I get to my nutritional values for the day. Calcium is lacking and besides a multivitamin pill, I try to get a glass of milk in during the day. 

 Morning Lake Mist

9/25 Photograph Morning Light

Dawn / Daybreak / Sunrise

Today was my annual foliage ride up to the White Mountains with my friend T where we take foliage pictures and then go over to my aunt's cottage in Maine. We help her put away the outdoor furniture and then enjoy lunch. Before I even saw the prompt for today, I had asked T to come over early to get an early start to our drive and to perhaps get some early morning shots on our ride. There were no daybreak shots because it was foggy in our part of the state.

We hit the jackpot when we got to Lake Chocura where the mountain was rising above the mist with the reflections on the water of the sky, mountain and foliage. We had to take quick shots because the mist was burning off.

Turned out to be a perfect picture for the day and we got a bunch of great shots. Since we went up a week earlier than we have gone up in the past, the foliage wasn't very good. Although on the west side of the Kancamagus highway, we did stop to get a couple of foliage shots that had some pop to it. Nothing like last year though, but at least this year's photo field trip will be remembered for the morning mist shots.

First Week of September Daily Photos

 The Hunt for No. 2 Pencils in My House

9/1 Photograph No.2 Pencils

Sharp / Lead / Write

The first week of September and I love not having to get school supplies for anybody. This prompt made me search and I finally found a No.2 pencil along with my husband's ruler from his elementary school days.

Back to Reality - Not!

9/2 Photograph Back to Reality

Routine / The First Day / At work

I golfed in a tournament in North Conway and it was of the most unique courses I have golfed on.There was a train running through the first tee box. The men had to drive over the tracks and the ladies' tee box was on the other side of this train. The course is right by the tourist train that runs through North Conway. It was a little disconcerting to have the train whistle sound while putting. It was  very hot and muggy which I didn't expect it to be up in the mountains and I appreciated the ice, cold handiwipes that the rangers were handing out. 

Catching Up with Chores

9/3 Photograph An Assignment

Homework / Chore / Duty

Are you starting to see the theme with the prompts for September? Not all of us are going back to school and we just need to be creative with the prompts. I got caught up with my youngest son's bedding now that he is back to school. The room is 100% cleaner than last year, it was worth being the mean mom and limiting food and drink to only water this summer. 

It was another hot day and I just threw on a sun dress to get things done around the house. I think it's reminiscent of the house coats(?) that women would wear to do housework. But I bet they didn't have the golf tan.

First Sail 

9/4 Photograph Beginning

Starting Point / Opening / Introduction

Last night I went out on Lake Sunapee with my friend K who has a sailboat. It was a perfect summer evening on the quiet lake. We had enough of a breeze to sail and I found it so relaxing to be out on the water. We brought along dinner, cheese and crackers while listening to tunes on Pandora. At one point the sails were brought down and we jumped in for a swim. The water was cool, but not heart stopping cold like other dives I have done off of boats! We came back in after sunset and I just loved the entire experience.  But I have to admit, after Labor Day, everything does become quieter around the lakes making it one of the best times to vacation in New Hampshire.

Homemade 

9/5 Photograph From Scratch

Square One / Homemade / Do-It-Yourself

Good prompt to have today, makes me start thinking about what to make for Christmas and to get an early start. Easier to do in September than November! This picture above is a 1/2 done dishcloth from last spring, I need to get going!