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March-A Month of Photos

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I had my templates for Capture Your 365 and A Month in Photos done the first of April. I’ve been waiting to post them until I got the layouts done, but it’s just not happening. So here is my March Month of Photos template. I will be back with the layout of the photo-of-the-day which I’ve managed to stay on track with for three months now.

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Some of my favorites from March: Skylar (I just love those chubby arms and bright eyes), my brother-in-law’s birthday party, Tracy’s birthday celebration at the Irish Harp in Niagara-on-the-Lake, high school rowers practicing on the Genesee River, a favorite photo from the orchid show, my self-portrait for the month (reflection in the doors at LLBean), and the beautiful magnolias in Highland Park (typically taken in late April or May!)

Card Patterns Challenge

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In my effort to finish the April birthday cards, I decided to play along with the Card Patterns challenge. Here’s the sketch:

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I don’t often follow along with sketch challenges, and I think I know why. I enjoy creating a card for them, but often the final product is not really me. This one falls into that category. Although I’m pleased with it, it’s not a card I would create on my own. 

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I chose the papers first, both from a 6X6 paper pad, Random by Crate Paper. Papertrey’s Raspberry Fizz and Vintage Cream cardstock were good matches, and I thought the Pretty Peony stamps worked well. The sentiment is from Delightful Dahlias, and the tiny butterfly from Butterfly Dreams. I used both Spellbinder’s Lacy Circles and the Double Ended Banner dies from PTI, and finished it off with a Simply Chartreuse ribbon. The pearls are from Michaels.

Lots going on this weekend. On Friday I’m going to a lecture by the All Rochester Reads author, Debra Dean, who wrote The Madonnas of Leningrad which our book group read several years ago.  Everyone in the book group liked it, which is a good recommendation since we’re a couples book group, and pretty diverse. Then we’re having company for dinner later that night.

Saturday, I’m off with friends to a baby shower in Buffalo. Since we’re all crafters, we’re leaving early so we can spend some time at Buffalo Stamps & Stuff beforehand. It will be an all day event. When we get home, Tracy and I are going to friend’s for dinner. I’m providing dessert, and will get it made so I can serve it on Friday as well. If it turns out well, I’ll take photos and post it here. My friend made it for us last month, and it was fabulous! Hope you have some fun planned for the weekend as well.

Photo Shoot

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My friend and I went to the Memorial Art Gallery today to take photos for an upcoming Photo Critique on mininalism. We found a few objects that may work well as our contributions, but the most interesting piece of art we saw was this one by Devorah Sperber called “After Grant Wood (American Gothic). The piece was created with 4,596 spools of thread.

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From this angle it’s easy to see the images, but when you are in the gallery looking at it straight on, it’s not as clear. As soon as I looked through my viewfinder, the images popped out at me. The gallery provided viewers with a glass ball on a handle. When you look through, this is what you see.

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Here are three close-up views:

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The first thing that amazed me was the creative thought behind the art work. How does someone come up with an idea for something like this? Then, what must it have taken to execute it? Amazing.

Home

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I must admit that leaving Oregon was MUCH harder than I expected it to be, and I never thought it would be easy. Fortunately, we already have our next trip planned, so that makes it a bit easier. For the first time in several trips we actually got home on time, despite a long delay leaving Medford. So here we are, a bit jet-lagged trying to get ourselves back into some semblance of routines. I’ve cleaned our basement pantry since we returned and done a huge grocery/pantry shopping. Today was filled with appointments and commitments, and tomorrow doesn’t look a lot better.

But what I really want to do is get busy in my studio. I have over 100 photos of the baby to edit. (Don’t worry, you won’t be subjected to all of them!) I started working on Finding Photo Flow, an online course by Kayla Lamoreaux, while we were away and which I can already recommend. I really need to get through the next lesson soon. Then in just a week or so, two new courses begin:  a BPC class on type with Cathy Z. and a class by Amy Tan at Studio Calico on stretching your scrapbook kits.

January is a month filled with birthdays. I got most of them made ahead of time so I could mail them from Oregon. Most of them are for guys, so I made a set of cards with a new Hero Art set I picked up in Buffalo earlier in the month. 

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All four cards were made with small ready-made cards from Paper Source, the new Hero Arts “Past Times,” “Simple Sentiments” by Papertrey Ink, and patterned papers from the “Funday” paper pad by My Mind’s Eye. The tags are from my stash, and I wish I knew where to get some more of them.

And because I’d hate to leave you without a baby photo or two, here are two favorites. The first one Adam took with Caleb in one hand and his Rebel in the other. Nothing I’d ever be able to do, and I just love how it came out.

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And one of Sarah and Caleb:

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He’s so tiny now, but he gained over a pound in the second week we were there, so I know he’s not going to be tiny for long.

Twelve on the Twelfth: Posted on the 18th

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I’d like to use the excuse that I’m spending my time holding babies, cooking, and visiting, but the truth is I’ll probably always be posting this project a day or two or three later. Nonetheless, I’ve decided to give 12 on the 12th a try this year. When I get home, I’ll add this template to a scrapbook page.

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From top left to bottom right:  our room number at the Best Western, Sarah and Caleb, Grandpa and Caleb, Sadie (best dog ever!), the current book group book (very interesting; I’m getting a bit of it read here while Caleb sleeps in my arms), Sadie checking out Caleb in his car seat before we leave for the mall, Sarah and Caleb, Caleb in his stroller, Caleb’s mirror on the back of the car seat so Sarah can see him in the rearview mirror (we never had such products when she was a baby!), the mall sign, my Photo365 app, and turkey chili for dinner.

I think I’ll try to always have a shot of our dinner and the book I’m currently reading. Beyond that, who knows? It was no problem getting 12 photos here in Oregon. I think it might be more challenging once we get home. Our time here is more than half up; we have just five full days left. It’s not going to be easy to leave! 

Needing Some Christmas Cheer

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It’s been a couple of tough weeks around here. One friend is home recuperating from a masectomy, another friend had surgery (more to come, perhaps) following a life-threatening fall, and yesterday one of my dearest friends received a diagnosis of a malignant brain tumor. She went to the ER on Sunday with flu-like symtoms and the tumor was discovered on a CAT scan. Who knows how long she might have walked around with this without knowing had she not gotten some kind of infection. Prayers for all of them would be appreciated!

I do have some Christmas crafts to share when there’s time again to ready them for the blog, but for today, here are the last two projects I’ve posted at the Scrap-Mart blog. My time on the DT has come to an end. I’ve really enjoyed my association with all the wonderful folks there, especially Katie, who is a fantastic DT Coordinator.

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A wintery card made with Canvas Corps and Heartfelt Creations products.

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This was made with October Afternoon’s Holdiay Style papers and snowflake stickers, and a new LifeStyle Crafts Snowflake border die, which was just perfect for this layout. I hid the jounaling on a stamped journaling card, since there wasn’t a good place for it on the layout.

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In all the rush and busyness of the last few days before Christmas, don’t forget to take time to hug all those closest to you, and tell them you love them! 

Project 64: Black and the New Kitchen

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When I saw last week’s color at Project 64 I knew it was the perfect time to get the photos up so you can see our new kitchen–all black and white, with a little red thrown in for accents. We are in love with it, and although it took twice as long as estimated, it is perfect!

I’ll start out with the photo I’m posting at Project 64 which is really a Christmas decoration in the kitchen. I bought this last year and couldn’t believe how perfect is was for the kitchen window when I pulled it out this year. When I bought it, a new kitchen wasn’t even in the planning stage.

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And here’s a shot of the full window–the only thing new here is the beautiful tile on the sill that matches the tile backsplash. The old window had lineoleum from the 1950’s.

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Anyone who’s been reading the blog for awhile knows our kitchen’s been under construction since the first of August. The kitchen was finished over Thanksgiving, and our red blinds arrived last week. We wanted up and down blinds—these only go down, but new ones have been ordered and we can keep these until they come in. I love the color–though you can only see the tops of them here. This is the only area where we added space (just 14 sq. ft.), but we now have three windows that give us a wonderful view of our lovely street and so much more light than we have anywhere else in the house.

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This was my only contribution to the design of the kitchen. We had an old bookcase in this spot in the previous kitchen, and I knew I wanted storage for my cookbooks and a place to display my collection of pitchers. We now have two extra shelves, but I haven’t had the time to put them in yet and rearrange.

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An OLD kitchen cupboard used to hang on this wall, and I had to stand on a chair to get almost any of the food stored there. I purchased this chalkboard/memo board from LL Bean and it’s working out wonderfully. I love the new light fixture which I bought from a photograph and had never seen until I got home from our trip out west. We looked at hundreds of light fixtures before I was finally shown this one in a catalog.

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This is the right side of the kitchen if you stand with your back to the window. In the old kitchen I had a very small cooktop on the left side of the kitchen and a very small wall oven on this side. Now I have a full-sized stove and I love it. I got two cookie sheets in side by side this weekend. The old oven barely held one! I also have a new full-sized refrigerator which I’ve never had before either.

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This is the left side. Now that the cooktop is gone, I have ample counter space. I’m not quite sure how Jack got so many cupboards in the existing space, but it’s amazing to me and to my friends how spacious the new kitchen seems when no additional floor space was added. 

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Here’s a shot of my McKenzie-Child teapot–a bit of a splurge, but I’m not sorry. Tracy says I designed the kitchen around it, but it’s not true! It was too perfect, and I already had a couple of small pieces of the same pattern. I used it in an earlier Project 64 post, and several folks asked for a full shot.

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Maples Out and In

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At the end of October we had our old maple tree taken down. I fought it for years, but the tree was old and Tracy was concerned about branches coming down on the house. Matt finally convinced me it was time. Here she is, the morning of her demise.

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It is quite a process to take down such a big tree, and we were very impressed with the company who did the job. Here’s a look at the process.

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The cherry picker and a series of ropes and pulleys safely removed the huge branches.

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All the branches were ground up and turned into mulch as they came down. You can see the grinding machine in the next photo.

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Gone! The huge trunk was cut into pieces and hauled off in a truck.

I had to admit that one advantage of having this tree removed is the increase in light in our living room. Our neighbors also thanked us, saying the light in their kitchen doubled.

 To sweeten the loss a bit, Tracy promised to have a new tree put in. The old maple was taken down on a Friday and the next week the new maple arrived. It’s a Sunset Red Maple, and I hope to see bright red leaves next fall. It’s supposed to be a quick growing tree, although it will never be as large as the old one in my life time. Putting the new tree in was almost as interesting to watch as taking down the old one. But it certainly didn’t take as long.

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I think we’ve done more home improvement projects in just one year than we did in the previous 27 years. Tracy has repainted the whole downstairs, we finally got a big screen TV and rearranged the living room, we’ve redecorated (and repainted) the guest room, the kitchen has been remodeled, and now the tree. Not that there aren’t plenty more projects to do. But I think we’re done for awhile, although Tracy still has some painting projects he’d like to get to.

When I get home, the kitchen will officially be done. The week before we left, the subway tiles went in and the kitchen was painted. After we left, the final coat on the floors was put on, and the light over the kitchen table was hung. We’ve ordered blinds which should come early next month, and then I’ll have photos for you. It really is a dream kitchen—one I never expected to have, and I can’t wait to settle in.

 

 

With Sympathy

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Sympathy cards are the hardest cards to make, I think. I want them to be a bit elegant, yet clean and simple and to convey my heartfelt sympathy to the recipient. I used the “let the paper work for you” technique again here, and I think it worked well.

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I started with a journaling card by Webster’s Pages, stamped the sentiment (Papertrey Ink’s Birds of a Feather), and tied a ribbon (Paper Source) around the Memory Box card. I can always find an appropriate sentiment for the inside in Papertrey’s With Sympathy set. 

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For this card I used a piece of paper from Pink Paislee’s “Butterfly Garden” mini-pad adhered to some Ripe Avocado cardstock by Papertrey Ink. These printed papers are almost gone now, and I wish I had some more of them. I used the same stamp, and my last piece of moss green ribbon from Paper Source.

We’ve kept up the frantic pace around here. The basement has been cleaned and purged; many bags to the garbage and to Goodwill. There’s still a large box of heirloom items from my family that need to be cleaned and appraised after the holidays, but finally everything has a place and is packed away in plastic boxes or bags so they won’t need so much cleaning in the future.

I’ve just about finished two baby albums, but they can’t be shown here for awhile as well as another banner for a second shower. About half my Christmas cards are finished. The rest will have to wait until I return from California and Oregon with a fresh supply of paper from Paper Source. Invitations to a holiday open house are also completed so they can be mailed before we leave.

The subway tiles were installed in the kitchen last week, and they look fantastic. We’re still waiting for the painters, but I’m hopeful they’ll show up this week though our contractor has yet to get a firm commitment from them. Maybe because it’s the last thing that needs to be done (except for a final finish on the floor), and maybe because it’s now been twice as long as the original estimate of time, but this delay is the most frustrating one we’ve had. I never expected I’d be decorating for the holidays and the kitchen would not be completed. But, that too, is happening since we’ll be entertaining shortly after we return. I do love decorating for Christmas, but it seems odd to be moving from summer decorations right to Christmas. I never did get the fall decorations out. With the construction, it seemed rather pointless. Our unusually warm November temperatures also make decorating for the holiday seem a bit odd.

I’m doing the best I can to keep up with all your wonderful blog posts, but once I’m on our trip I should be able to catch up!

Baby Shower for Sarah

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Sarah and Adam left almost two weeks ago, and time has flown by, partly because we had to be out of the house for the better part of two days while the hardwood floors in the  kitchen and hall were redone. They are beautiful, and Jack spent three days installing the hutch near the window, and the crown molding. This week the tile guy, the painters, and the siding folks all arrive, and we should be done except for the final coat on the floor. The contractor took all his tools out of the kitchen and powder room on Friday, and we finally have our kitchen back for the weekend, at least.

The first day Sarah was here I hosted a baby shower for her. It was so much fun to have  so many of our good friends here to celebrate with her. The day after Sarah and Adam left was the anniversary of Micah and Judah’s birth and death; a sharp reminder of the grief and trials of the last year for all of us, but especially for Sarah and Adam. It was wonderful to be celebrating the upcoming birth of Caleb Elijah, and so good to know that everything is going very well this time around.

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I put together a collage of some of the photos. Sarah has chosen a jungle theme for the nursery and it was a lot of fun choosing and making decorations for the shower. The cake was fabulous. All the little animals marching around the cake came from the design of the paper products. It was a pumpkin spice cake and as delicious as it was cute. The cookies were made by a friend of a friend and matched the food picks in the muffins (see below). The centerpiece had three little stuffed animals, the giraffe and lion as well as a monkey on the other side. The family photo shows four generations:  Tracy, his mother, Matt, and Sklar—and Betsy and me as well. (I wonder where Sarah was when this was taken?) Sadly the light over Tracy’s head doesn’t do much for the photo.

Here are some close-ups of the banner and some of the things I made for the shower. 

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Each guest was asked to fill out a tag with good wishes or advice for Sarah. Then Tracy took a photo of each guest with Sarah, and I’ve put them together in a scrapbook for her.

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I used my favorite fry-box die to make favors we filled with chocolate-covered almonds.

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These cute papers from My Minds Eye were just perfect for the jungle theme. I’ll be back tomorrow with some photos of the scrapbook album I put together. I’ll be taking it with me when we go to visit in a couple of weeks.

 

October Recap & Pass the Book

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A bit (well, maybe more) about what’s been happening here. The first weekend of October, Tracy and I were in Lake Placid along with our good friends. Tracy and Bob did some hiking (more about that), and Cathy and I enjoyed some time in the shops in the area. It was a cold, rainy weekend, but beautiful, nonetheless.

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The following Wednesday, I began a class on learning how to use Lightroom 3, taught by one of the professional photographers and gallery partners at Image City. My friend, Nancy, and I attend their monthly photo critiques at the gallery. We’ve now had three classes (the last is this week), and I’m beginning to feel comfortable with the program. I had tried to teach myself how to use Lightroom 2, but got all confused about the catalog and how to import the photos. Now I have that mastered and must say it is a very powerful editing program, and much more affordable than full Photoshop. With Lightroom and PSE, I know I’ve got all I’ll ever need in the way of software.

I’ve prepared dinner for Interfaith Hospitality guests at our church, we’ve signed new wills (and taken our children to the lawyers to sign notary documents), attended two meetings in my role as chair of a Presbytery committee (two more to go before the end of the month), crafted with my friends and on my own, had lunch with college friends, attended an Arts & Lectures presentation, and moved back into the kitchen (though it is still not done & there will be more about that later as well.) Tracy and I redid our guest room. Tracy repainted it, and I chose the new bed linens, curtains, and decorations. We also spent a day in Ithaca, visiting our favorite Farmer’s Market, and hiking in Buttermilk Falls State Park.

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But the best part of the month was that both Sarah and Matt arrived on the 15th for a visit. Matt was here a week, and has returned (safely) to Denver. While he was here we spent a lot of time with Betsy and Skylar as well. It was so much fun to have everyone here. Sarah could barely keep her hands off Skylar. On the 16th, I hosted a baby shower for Sarah who is expecting a little boy in early January. It was a lovely event (more about that later). Our friends were so happy to have a chance to see her (as well as Matt), and it was lots of fun to have everyone together. I made the favors, a banner, and have started a scrapbook about the event. Sarah and I have spent quite a bit of time in baby stores, and I’ve had a lovely time picking up some special things for this new addition to our family.

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(Love this photo of my two kids and Skylar)

Adam arrived from Virginia on Thursday where he had been presenting at a conference at Union Seminary. We went out for a family dinner on Thursday night (Skylar slept through the whole meal), and got our family photo for the Christmas cards. Sarah and Adam drove to New Jersey (and back) Saturday for a wedding, and took off for California late this afternoon. They will be there for just two more weeks, as they are moving to Ashland, Oregon where Adam has accepted a position as Associate Pastor for Christian Education at the Presbyterian church. We’ll be going out next month to help them unpack & organize and attend Adam’s ordination back in Livermore after Thanksgiving.

And over the weekend we went on our annual trip to Niagara-on-the-Lake with our good friends, Karen and Mike. We dined, we visited some favorite and new wineries, and saw a fabulous production of My Fair Lady at the Shaw Festival.

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If you skimmed through the above, I certainly don’t blame you, but I’ve had a couple of emails about things going on here so I thought I’d do a recap. Somehow there wasn’t time to blog about it as it happened. But here’s the big news: the new recipient of Sharing Your Story.

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Deb, I’ve got your address, and the book will be on its way tomorrow!

Hands, and Contented Baby!

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I’ve got some more beautiful photos of Sylar Rose to share as well as a photo of her tiny fingers wrapped around Tracy’s hand. I’m posting it at the I Heart Faces blog for their Hands challenge.

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Skylar is one of the most contented babies I’ve ever known. I’ve only seen her eyes once in the times I’ve visited her; she’s a great sleeper and is giving Betsy four-five hours of sleep at night. Tomorrow she’ll just be three weeks old!

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Off to the pediatrician’s

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We think she’s just the sweetest baby ever! I can’t wait for Matt to get here this weekend to meet her.

 

LSNED: Days 5-8 & Kitchen Construction

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Here are the lastest additions to my LSNED Macro Photography project:

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I learned I need to keep spare batteries for my remote cable release on hand. I had to run to the camera store to buy new ones. (And a set of spares!) Most of the photos require shutter settings of several seconds, so there’s no way to handhold the camera. I added the camera settings to the tag after I took this photo.

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I bought some flowers at the Farmers Market so I’d have some good candidates for macros. It’s been dark and dreary here all week, so the only light I had came from the overhead light in the dining room. It proved to be quite uneven, so I should have tried to set up some more focused lights. I’m really happy with the sharp focus in this one, though.

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No matter what I did, I couldn’t get a sharp focus across the whole image in this one. I was at my smallest possible aperture for this lens, so I’m not sure what the problem was. Maybe light . . .

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It takes me a LONG time to set up the camera and compose a good photo while using a tripod. I’m not used to manually focusing every image either.

The photo for September 5th is a jar of canned salsa. We had quite the haul from our garden this weekend, so I really needed to make some salsa. Since I don’t have a stove, it was a challenge. I thought I’d take this opportunity to share some photos of our kitchen construction.

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This was the way it looked this weekend. The drywall stacked against the wall kept us from getting into the kitchen from inside the house. We had to go out the front door and around to the side entrance. We must have amused the neighbors since it was raining, and we were going back and forth carrying supplies with an umbrella.

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Here I am chopping veggies for the salsa . . .

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. . . that we cooked on the camp stove.

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The front of our house isn’t all that pretty either. There will be a big bay window here when the project is completed. I can’t wait to have more light in the kitchen.

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Most of the time, we’re cooking in the dining room. Our refrigerator is there as well as the microwave.

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And the toaster oven, and lots of the stuff we had to move out of the kitchen.

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Needless to say, a lot of furniture from the dining room is now in the living room. I really thrive on a neat and clean house, so this is quite the challenge. One month down, at least another to go.

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On Monday and Tuesday we were without a sink. After the drywall went up, the sink came back in, and tonight my new stove was hooked up. I’m very excited to have a real stove (I’ve been cooking on a very small cooktop for 26 years). Tracy didn’t get home until really late tonight, so we went out for pizza, but tomorrow I’ll be cooking on the new stove!

 

 

Home

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I don’t think I’ve ever been away from blogging for so long. We really didn’t have any internet access to speak of the whole time we were away, and it’s taken me a week to get myself reoriented to being home. A lot has gone on.

Our sister-in-law lost her courageous battle with cancer right before we returned from our trip to Alaska. Tracy was home just two days and then flew to Phoenix where her memorial service was held on Saturday. A dear friend also passed away last week, and I attended his funeral yesterday. Both died far too young, but we are relieved to have their suffering and pain come to an end.

While we were away the contractor was able to gut our kitchen. We have just a sink now, and that’s how it will be for several weeks to come. The finish date is the beginning of October. We had gotten everything out before we left, but have spent some time this week, reorganizing and moving boxes so we can cook and eat in the dining room. Our microwave, toaster oven, and grill (on the patio) seem to work just fine. It’s good that it’s happening in the summer when we can grill easily.

So, Vancouver, Victoria, cruising, and Alaska . . . It was all fabulous! We’d never been on a cruise, and someone on the ship told us we’d have two reactions when it was over:  Why had we waited so long? Where will we go next? We’re not ready to plan another one quite yet, but it wouldn’t take much to convince me to go on a cruise again. The service was superb, the food excellent, and there was always too much to do. On the several days we had “at sea” much of our time was spent on our balcony, looking at glaciers, and the gorgeous scenery. I took, as always, far too many photos to ever print or use, but photography was a bit tricky since nearly all of it happened from a bus, a train, or a boat. Not the best circumstances for great photography. At the last minute I decided not to take my tripod, and I’m glad, as I don’t think there would have been many occasions for using it. I’ve sorted through the nearly 2,000 photos (just mine, not Tracy’s or our friend’s!) and eliminated all the awful ones and duplicates, but there are many, many more to delete. I did crop a few so I could post them today.

Here’s a look at the atrium on the Island Princess. The boat was beautiful and our stateroom was lovely.

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We chose wonderful excursions. There will be more about them later, but one of my favorites was the photography excursion in Juneau to Mendenhall Glacier and Auke Bay for whale watching. We were able to hike up to Nugget Falls. This was probably the nicest day (weather-wise) we had during the trip.

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In Talkeetna, we took a river raft trip down the Talkeetna River. Here are the four of us before we left for the trip. Although it rained prior to our trip, and after our trip, we lucked out and got a dry ride.

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In Denali, we opted to extend the wildlife tour from four hours to eight hours, and what a good decision that was. Most of the beautiful scenery and all the wildlife was spotted after we would have turned around on the first tour. We saw lots of grizzly bears and caribou as well as moose, a wolf, a porcupine, and Dall sheep. These guys were pretty close to the road, so getting a decent shot from the bus was a bit easier.

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I’ll be working on catching up with all your blogs in the next week, but it will take me awhile. The number of posts in my Google Reader account is kind of scary!

 

Holiday Gift Exchange

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It’s been a busy week. Aside from packing for a rather lengthy vacation, we’re also packing up our kitchen so the contractor can begin to rip out the ceiling and old cupboards while we’re away. We’ve been driving to Consesus Lake every day to visit with Tracy’s family. His mom has rented a cottage, and all of us try to gather for dinner (at least) every day. It’s been over 90° every day this week, so it’s been great to be at the lake. The last several years, we’ve taken the opportunity to draw names for the Christmas gift exchange during this week since everyone is together. I make gift tags, and if they want, the family can save them for the packages come December. (Mine is in a little dish on my dresser so I don’t lose it!)

Here is this year’s version:

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I kept it pretty simple this year. I colored some Avery tags with Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Broken China), punched some snowflakes and outlined them with a glitter pen, and added a coordinating gem. The snowflakes are popped out with a 3-D adhesive. The back was stamped with WPlus9’s “All Occasion Tags.”

This is probably my last blog post before we leave for Vancouver, BC and Alaska. It appears internet connections will be iffy, so I doubt that I’ll be able to do much blog reading or commenting (not that I expect to have much time for that), and I’m quite sure posting will be a challenge. I’m hoping to keep up with Project 64, but we’ll see how it goes. I do have a few posts pre-scheduled, and I’ll be catching up with you on my return. We’re very excited to be going on our first cruise, and to be going with good friends of over 25 years. Should be fabulous!