2/28 Anticipation

Saturday Cooking - Preparing for Week

2/28 Anticipation

Today's prompt was screwed up for the first time, the list said Anticipation while the email prompt was about letters/snail mail/ SWAK. I went with anticipation since it fit with my mood for the day. Not sure what the week will bring with my Dad's procedure on Monday, so I cooked American chop suey for my family here and to bring some of it down with me for a quick meal or two. I also made a Bisquick quiche with baby spinach and the end of a bag of cheddar jack cheese. The quiche are in the background already to go for lunches this week. 

For dinner, I bought a pot roast to cook in the crock pot with an envelope of Lipton Onion Mushroom soup and a can of tomatoes. Initially, I thought I would do bbq beef with it, but then decided to go for the regular meal, minus the vegetables in the crockpot. I don't like how mushy they get. For sides, I cooked mashed potatoes and carrots on the side. The best of the dinner for me, was the rolls that I made. Instead of 20 small rolls, I made 12 large rolls which were of course delicious, with all that butter, why wouldn't they be?

My husband finally made it home after a delay today in Baltimore. He had a great time at the Maroon 5 concert last night in Nashville and got a fantastic seat 7 rows back from the runway section of the stage. It appears that you can get a ticket for a concert for the original ticket's price on the same day at the box office as long as you are a single. 

Here is the last Rat eye view picture of the week, instead of a cat, the cat's toy. 

59/365 Cat Toy, Floor View



End of the month collages. Onto March and warmer weather! I made two of the collages in Lightroom in the print module and the other is from the collect app that I keep on the IPhone.

Cy365 February ( Collage made in Lightroom 5 in Print Module)

Collect App Collage - IPhone App for collecting daily Photos

Project 365 Flickr- February

1/11 White

 White on Red

1/11 Photograph White

Neutral / Ivory / Pearl

Flickr 11/365 Red Cups

I had set up the poster board and white tablecloth for light this morning and just had the pearls. Ended up being a good practice with my flash and light bouncing. The red cups were used for a contrast along with the red prompt for the flickr group. I liked the contrast of the white on the red. The cups were found in one of our Christmas decoration boxes from our in- laws, I was hoping there would be plates, but I didn't find any.

Later on in the day, we had a birthday dinner for S and I made a cake from a box that I had in the cabinet. And yes, cake mixes get old, I guess 5 years is too long for a cake mix. A quick look on the internet and a homemade chocolate cake was made. The cake was the Basic Chocolate Cake Recipe and without sour cream in the house, vanilla yogurt was substituted.  A little too sweet, but there is room for improving it next time.

From old and flat to chocolate goodness

1/8 My Gear

My Photography Gear

1/8 Photograph My Gear

Around Me / In My Bag / My Hobby

Do I know you?

Nothing fancy here, just my gear on the ice box in the dining room. This was set up to include all the gear, but usually I have a couple of lens there since it's a good spot to change them out. I included the books because I always have the manuals with me and the other books/magazines are my resources. Once the picture was done, I had my camera set up and took a couple of pictures of the cats who were hanging out in the sun. Muffin looks a bit creepy since colorized the picture so that the only color is the green of her eyes. 

The day flew by and I ended up with a food shot for the flickr picture of the day. It was too cold to be out for any time with the camera, but who am I kidding? It wasn't the camera that I was worried about, I just didn't want to be any colder! 

Doesn't this look like there is a plain counter top here?  This was taken on the island with a white poster board behind it causing the counter top to change color. This should be a advertisement for Tupperware.

9/365 Salad for Dinner - Time to Get Back to Healthy Eating

12/29 Orange

 Last of the Orange Juice

12/29 Photograph An Orange

Citrus / Fruit / Juice

Always a challenge for the food prompts on whether I have the food. In this case, I knew that we had orange juice, but just not how much. I was lucky in that my sons left me about 6 ounces and I was able to set up an orange juice picture. It gave me practice with the macro lens and I used a couple of books for a make shift tripod.

As of today, I am finally caught up with my blog and I apologize to anyone who is a regular visitor.      ( all 4 of you?) It's all good, I have a chance to work on photography and I have two more days of 365 photos for 2014 and blogging. And even if it's not a cat blog as one infrequent reader would like, it's a blog with a different photo each day.

12/20 and 12/21 Holiday Treats

Candy Canes ( Off-Prompt)

12/20 Photography With The Tree

Presents / Under The Tree / In the Tree

Better than Homemade, New Holiday Addiction

12/21 Photograph In The Kitchen

Preparing / Home-Cooked / Baking

I had missed the Candy Cane prompt of taking pictures of candy canes so I picked up a box to use for stocking stuffers. I used the same set up of lights that I had for the Santa Claus pictures. At that point, we didn't have our tree up and there no presents wrapped to take pictures of and that led me to the off prompt for the day. Every year, I swear that I will be ready earlier and I never follow through on that resolution. I was lucky on the 20th that my husband and two sons went out to the movies giving me plenty of time to organize and wrap the gifts. 

For homemade, this may be a slacker picture, but honestly, these are the best crackers ever! Nabisco has a good thing going, however, they were in short supply and this picture is of me taking the last 2. The week before, my aunt sent me a picture of her buying the last 2 at Publix. I even saw the Nabisco rep in a store on Christmas eve morning and he couldn't help me out, seriously, I felt like an addict looking for my next "fix". On his recommendation, I took home the bacon flavored ritz, but sadly, they don't come close. In the 365 gallery there were all these kitchen pictures of baking, aprons and then there I am with my box of crackers. Mine was original.

It was too early for my holiday cooking, that happens on 12/23 and 12/24. Treats don't last long here.

12/12 Candy Cane Cookie

Candy Cane Cookie

12/12 Photograph Peppermint Stick

Red & White / Candy Cane / Collected

My neighbor's grandson wouldn't trade the cookie for nacho chips, but he was kind enough to pose for me. I would have loved to turn the cookie, but didn't want to tempt fate since I didn't want a four year old wait to eat his cookie! The instruction for this prompt was to have a close up crop to the shot; the green shirt is such a great back ground for the plate.

12/5 The Rocket Launch!

Orion Rocket Launch

12/5 Photograph On a Table

Set out / Decor / On Display

After three delays yesterday morning, the Orion rocket was go through our cloudy skies. We woke up to rain here on Cocoa Beach, but the weather was fine at Cape Canaveral. It was exciting to be here for the launch, history on display, the first step to a manned launch in the future to deep space. It's cool to hear the take off and feel the vibrations along with viewing it. The clouds cut off most of the view for us, and the videos on the NASA website were really good to watch to see even more of the action. Four hours after launch, Orion landed safely in the ocean. 

I took a break from golf today and swam laps in the community pool. It was funny to hear some of the senior citizens complain about the water being eighty degrees, I was okay with the temperature! I rode my bike down and then came back to prepare supper for the night. On the menu tonight, Spaghetti squash with chicken sausage, onions, peppers, mushrooms and mozzarella cheese. Another good meal! 

11/27 Thanksgiving Thanks

 Thanks for Ingenuity and Family at Thanksgiving

11/27 Give Thanks for Family

Loved Ones / Generations / Children

After a wet snow fall and tree branches on lines all over our area, most of us were without power for the holiday. We pulled off Thanksgiving thanks to ingenuity, a gas grill and lots of tinfoil while the best part was just leaving the dishes. Luckily my sister-in-law had running water in the next town over, where we could prep the turkey, potatoes and string beans in the morning since the stuffing, rolls, pies and squash were done the day before.  I used a tinfoil chafing pan on the grill for the turkey and had small weber tinfoil drip pans that I lined with tinfoil for the stuffing and vegetables. The gravy was made with drippings and then kept warm on top of the sides while the remaining rolls were kept warm by the fire. We had seven for dinner, missing a niece and my oldest but it will go down in our family history as a memorable holiday as we enjoyed each other's company minus the electronics

In the morning, we thought the power might be coming back on until we went outside to see the damage for ourselves. As pretty as it may have looked from afar, the snow on the trees was heavy enough to either break the branches or bend the trees over. We were able to monitor the electric outage map on-line through our phone and read twitter for entertainment. Early in the morning, there were tweets that expressed frustrations with power that were ridiculous including one from a neighborhood next to a hospital where a woman tweeted her displeasure as to why she was without power while the hospital had it. All you had to do was go outside of your house to realize that electricity wasn't going to come back on quickly. We were glad that we went ahead with our dinner which we enjoyed in our candlelit home. The evening was spent in front of the fire playing cards after taking a quick ride to charge our phone batteries.

The picture on the bottom left is the pole in  front of our house!

11/26 The Last Green Scenery

 The Last Green Scenery from the Garden

11/26 Give Thanks for Colorful Scenes

Landscape / Display / Sight

This photo was taken at 10:30 AM, just after the snow of the Thanksgiving storm had begun. I almost used a sunrise picture from Florida, but wanted to a picture of the day. With the snow flakes glimmering on the dead flower pod with the green grass behind it, I I knew that I wouldn't be getting many colorful shots outside here in New England until Spring.

 After a couple of photos, I then spent the afternoon getting ready for the Thanksgiving meal and dinner for the night while the snow intensified outside. I got the apple pie and chocolate cream pie made along with stuffing and squash while getting supper ready. I also went on line to find a dinner roll recipe where I could use the bread machine to make the dough. This recipe at the Running Upward Blog for Granma's Yeast Rolls gave me a bit of a problem ( bring out the white wine….). Once the dough was ready in the bread machine, I debated whether to cook them that night and enjoy them with our meatloaf dinner or make the rolls and freeze the dough to cook the next day. Luckily, I made the right decision to make them ahead of time and we enjoyed them so much that I planned on making more the next morning to have with the Thanksgiving Dinner. Once dinner was done, the lights began flickering and we quickly filled a clean pan with water and found all our flashlights. 

The lights went out at 7 PM and we hunkered down in the family room with the wood stove

going while we talked about playing cards. I went out around 10 PM to check out the snow and saw that the weight of the snow was causing branches to break and it was clear that the electricity wasn't coming back on that night. 

11/25 Give Thanks for Pie!

 Give Thanks for Pie

11/25 Give Thanks for Dessert

Treat / Pastry / Sweet

Came home to an empty refrigerator and Thanksgiving in two days. With everything that needed to be done, a ready made pie crust was on the shopping list. The prompt for this picture was to have it tell a story. I think it does say, real apples + boxed crust equals a homemade apple pie. Besides filling the refrigerator, I also made this Sausage Potato casserole with white and sweet potatoes. It was a hit and it was a good thing that I used two packages of sausages. 

Food!

Three Jalapeños From The Garden

10/6 Photograph Whole

Full / Perfect / Complete

These poor little jalapeños made it through the frost from the night before and became dinner after the pictures. Well, not really dinner, just a part of the taco meat. I used a macro lens to get the close up and they weren't really perfect.  Initially I was going to take a picture of a whole acorn, but there were none to be found in the backyard since the squirrels had a made a mess of what had dropped on the ground. But just checking through the yard made me realize that it needed to be raked before I ended up mowing the lawn. Sometimes taking pictures just leads to work.

Farm Stand Squash Display

10/7 Photograph For Sale

Market / Exchange / Payment

Morning cooking and walk scenes

Today was a day of food as I started cooking right after my walk this morning. Two batches of Skinnytaste crockpot turkey meatballs used up what garlic I had which gave me a great excuse to go to Dimond Hill Farm for the day's prompt. It was raining in the morning so I had to wait until the weather cleared. While home, I also baked some Banana chocolate chip muffins which is another great recipe from Skinnytaste with only 2 tablespoons of butter and 1/3 cup of brown sugar plus I experimented and made a pumpkin apple soup. The soup's color was not quite the orange but it was still delicious. 

After lunch I headed over to the farm, the woman who was managing the farm stand was so nice when I asked if I could take pictures and even told me a few other places around the barn that I could check out. I was in photography heaven with my 50 mm lens. It was the right choice for the lighting while I could include as much as possible in the frame. I chose the picture above because of the line of baskets leading the eye into the picture where you can just see the back of the barn, the textures of the baskets and wood along with all the squash. It was a tough call though since I ended up taking so many colorful pictures.

I left with organic garlic, spaghetti squash, a sugar pumpkin and a frozen baguette. The bread was excellent once it thawed. I will be back to the farm next week for more squash and to check out the local meat. 

Pumpkin, Squash and Decorative Corn Display

Pumpkins and more pumpkins

Vegetables and fruits galore

Shadows and a Meal

Shadow Heart

7/16 Photograph a Long Shadow

A Dark Shape / A Profile / A Companion

A Meal

7/17 Photograph View From Above

Look Down / A Meal / Arranged

Yesterday's prompt wasn't going to happen with the weather that we had yesterday, rain, rain and then clouds. At 5 when I was making dinner, I happened to look out on the back porch and finally saw shadows on the floor. To make a pretty shadow, I took a candle holder out to the porch and placed it on the floor to get the heart shadow. I did some processing in lightroom with the picture and the texture of the floor are a good contrast to the shadow. 

Today's picture of the day is my supper and I think it's funny that the last time I took a picture of dinner recipe, it was the same meal. We love this Macaroni, broccoli cheese recipe from Skinnytaste.com. Every time I make it, the comment is made that bacon would make it taste even better. No bacon, but I did cut up two slices of Prosciutto that I had leftover from last week's Chicken Marsala and it was delicious. I am sharing the CSA vegetables with my my neighbor and last week I got 2 stalks of broccoli, too small for a dinner side, but perfect for this recipe. What you don't see in this picture is other plates because I came home to two sons in bed since they were up very early for work today. I bet there will be a midnight supper here with the rest of the leftovers.

I did get out yesterday for some garden shots, no hummingbirds, too wet to be out there. Today I worked for 4 hours and then went up north to a ski/golf warehouse to get a birthday gift for my husband. It's a good drive and given the choice, I would rather go an hour north, then an hour south based on the traffic. By the time I got home, no time for outside photography. 

This has got to be the most random collage yet. I posted the bug picture on Facebook last night to figure out what it is and I think it's an Oriental beetle, not a Japanese beetle. 

Healthy Snack

Healthy Snack- Carrot Sticks and Spinach Yogurt Dip

5/14 Photography Health

Fruits & Veggies / Wholesome Food / Nourishment

There was almost another picture of a salad for today as I had to make one, but thought it was still too soon for a repeat. I think that salads are great to photograph with all the colors, contrasts and textures and it was hard not to fall back on photographing a fresh salad for today's prompt as it would have met all of the prompts. Although I think with the

new lens, I caught a lot of texture in the carrot sticks and dip. And yes, there are carrot sticks cut up in the refrigerator lately as I am trying to keep healthy snacks on hand to avoid the temptation of going for a  carb snack. To make it even healthier, I have a dip with the vegetables since it was recommended in one of my weight loss classes that it is better to have more than one food group for a snack to fill you up. The other option for the picture today was the ingredients for my spaghetti squash dinner, which I had all the intention of cooking today, but got home too late to make. No healthy dinner here tonight, frozen pizza which was quick and easy.

Today was a day of not much going on. I got my new eye glasses today and what a racket that is now with the prices, glad to have insurance for part of the cost! I got transitional lens which will be good on overcast days for me especially for golf and shopping. They are not as stylish as my old pair, but they will be fine. Then it was a drive to  Boston in the afternoon to drop off my son at the airport. I took a different way home to avoid traffic and listened to pod casts for Captureyour365 which helped to make the time go by. Loved coming home to find my son putting the lime on the lawn, that was helpful! Tomorrow is another day of transporting sons as my youngest will be home for the summer from school. Will have to get out early to food shop as we are running low. How did I get this all done while working full time, I have no idea!

More photos were uploaded to the Zenfolio website and I have a link to the site on the top of the page to the right. Click on the dolphin picture and it takes you to the portfolio homepage. I just need to add a Florida Gallery and get more pictures uploaded. It's not as simple as just uploading each photo since I am bringing each one into Lightroom to make adjustments as needed. I uploaded the photo below for selling in both color and black and white. I figure by next week, I will advertise it on Facebook and email my friends and hopefully I will sell a couple of photos.

Chocolate Vignette

Chocolate Vignette- Now This is what I call a Photo Prompt!

2/25 Photograph Bittersweet

Mixed / Chocolate / Bittersweet

I blame my son, because he eats bread and there was a coupon at the grocery store on the Hershey's spread for $1.00 off with purchase of bread which was on the list. And then, you just can't eat the spread off a spoon, well, you could, but I wouldn't admit it, and since the prompt did mention chocolate, I thought, why not buy some pretzels since food was needed to dip into the chocolate? Better than the vignette of bread baking which I also did or the one of vacation stuff that was my initial idea this morning as I was driving to work. The best part of this was the chocolate on chocolate. (BTW- If you are counting calories, get your husband who doesn't eat chocolate, a really good bar and then keep it hidden in the refrigerator for little snacks). My son's eyes totally lit up when he came home and saw what I had bought today. He even mentioned the calories, 200 for 2 tablespoons versus the 60 I have for my greek yogurt dip. But it's all for art, right?

These were my alternative photos, yes, I did have hot chocolate after eating the chocolate bar with the chocolate spread. 

With all that sugar, tonight's dinner was a salad! But I will have some nice warm, cinnamon raison toast for a snack later. I wonder how it will taste with chocolate? Kidding, I think.....

Yummy

Yummy! Birthday cake- How easy was this today?

1/14 Photograph something Yummy

Dessert / Something Sweet / Chocolate

This photo prompt couldn't have been any easier  as I had to make a birthday cake today. This is the infamous Meme Alice cake that never tastes quite as good as hers. The cake that she has even made for today's birthday boy and brought in a car to Savannah, GA from Massachusetts on our way to Florida. ( That boy is so spoiled by this cake!)

 The secret is the coffee in the  home made buttercream mocha chocolate frosting of which I made a lot of, or so I thought. There was a technical difficulty in the cakes kind of falling apart, requiring the use of frosting as a "cement". I took one of the cakes out of the pan before it was fully cooled. To hide some of the imperfections, I grated a chocolate bar on top. I will probably get some grief from that, because "Meme doesn't make it that way!"

I learned a lot about food photography today.

1. Hide your mistakes!!! No need for the world to see a lopsided cake

2. Check your background - firewood in a food shot? Lame backdrop with the napkin hanging in the back.

3. Iron the table cloth if you are going to take a picture from above!

I am sure that all the imperfections will be forgotten once we cut the cake. Time now to get the bacon covered meatloaf out of the oven for the birthday dinner! Glad I hiked 3 miles today on icy trails in the wood, going to need those exercise calories!