Days 279-285

Hey guys,

Sorry for the incredibly, ridiculously, embarrassingly late posts.  Hopefully I'll get back on track with these pretty soon.  This is a great indication of how I get easily overwhelmed and shut down.  It's amazing that I've made it this far on the project without giving up entirely. :)

The following pictures are for the week of March 7-13.

Day 279: Playdate?

Some cute cards my friend Kimmy gave me for my birthday last year.  They're so cute, I don't have the heart to use them. I know it's silly, but I'm weird like that.

Day 280: Pre-spring sunset

One day I might count how many sunsets I took at work during this photo challenge...I bet it's in the double-digits.

Day 281: I'm toast

Trying to get creative with bland-looking food by putting pretty plates underneath it.

Not sure it worked.

Day 282: Reading Party!

We like to have reading parties in our family.  They mainly consist of us all sitting around in silence, reading different novels.

...It sounds cooler than it is.

Day 283: Snow-capped Mountains

Some days I'm just struck by the beauty of this place!

Day 284: The Chocolate!

Coolest little bakery I've ever been to!  I'm going back.  Soon.  Who cares about that stupid, "no sugar" rule anymore.  Life after this place will never be the same!  There is so much I want to say about it...the awesome pictures on their website, the quaint atmosphere of the shop, the friendly staff who know how to joke around with customers, the AMAZING vanilla cake with chocolate ganache, the TO DIE FOR hot chocolate with spices in it that really make you feel like you're drinking Christmas in a cup all year round...

SO GOOD!

Day 285: My Triumph!

Inspired by that awesome bakery from yesterday, I decided to make a cake of my own...

After a fiasco with the first cake, Christine made a great red velvet from scratch so I could still use all of the awesome decorating stuff I got for my birthday.  This is what we made as a result!  I'm so proud!  I can't believe it looks almost presentable!  Cake decorating is easier than I thought it would be!

Days 272 through 278

Day 272: Inundated

This is the pile of mail that greeted us when we got home last night.  It's about half as big as the pile of paperwork on my desk when I returned to work.  I am thoroughly overwhelmed.  I have no idea where to even begin with everything I have to do now that I'm home.

Help!

Day 273: Glory in Imperfections

I got this penguin at the flea market in Cabo.  I picked him out amid a bunch of other, better looking, trinkets because I liked his little gimpy fin.  Being unique is something of which we all have the capability.  But here's the secret: you can't be unique when you're trying to be.  You can only pull it off when you are truly yourself - when you are no longer concerned with how you compare to others.

That is the challenge.

Day 274: The End of Something

Month 9 is complete!  That's right, I only have 3 months left!  The end is near...finally.

Today as I took pictures of the sunset, I was sad to know they would be the last pictures I took with this awesome lens I rented from Borrow Lenses.  I rented this same lens last summer for my family reunions, and I can't express how much I wish I didn't have to give it back.  It's too expensive for me to justify the purchase, but if I rent it any more times I will completely nullify that excuse.  The rentals aren't cheap, and soon I'll have paid the same amount in rental costs as I would have if I'd purchased the dang thing.

One day...

Day 275: The "Little" Things

I'm so glad RoseAnne came over tonight for our regularly scheduled girls night!  She was all dressed up for an appointment she had before she came over, and she looked so cute!  Jack was his usual adorable self, chasing the cats around the house in his speedy crawl, making faces at us, and being generally captivating for the camera.

I really love my family!

Day 276: Red Trees

I'm used to seeing trees turn red during the fall, but I'm not familiar with red trees with no leaves.  I saw these today in a parking lot and had to stop and capture them.  In the slanting winter sunlight, the bark on these trees shone a vivid red - almost fuchsia.  I wish I still had that lens I rented because it would have been able to capture these better.

Ah, well.  No use thinking about it.

Day 277: Note to Self

Note to self: put makeup on before taking an extreme close-up of your face.

If I had taken any other pictures today, I would have posted one of them instead.  This picture required an obscene amount of touch-up to make it even slightly acceptable, when all I needed to do was dab on a bit of cover-up and eyeliner before I hit the shutter button.  I guess I'm still shell-shocked from my return to work this week.  I can't believe how busy I was, and yet how little I got done!  So frustrating!  I guess all I can hope for is to do better next week.

Day 278: The Old Standby

Whenever you see a picture of my cats on here, you can almost be certain it's because I forgot to take a picture until right before I went to bed.  The cats seem to be my last resort subjects.  If I'm too tired to think of something original, I just run upstairs and snap a few of the cats and call it good.

I need a new standby I think.

Day 264: Sailing Away

Christine and Ryan

It's approaching sunset and we are on the ship, setting sail for Cabo!

We were on the deck to watch as we left the harbor (and to be cheesy and wave at the doc like people do in movies).  It was chilly and windy...really windy.  Christine and I both had dancing hair.  Christine's looked cooler of course because it's longer.

I love this shot because it looks like her hair is reaching out to grab Ryan.  Also because they both have genuine laughter faces which makes me smile every time I look at it.

Who cares that the subjects of the photo aren't in focus.  It's not like I'm a professional or something. ;)

Day 247: Ball of Nerves

The sunset through the trees.

I named this picture "Ball of Nerves" because I wanted to use the word "ball" since it's a picture of a bunch of dangling balls on a tree, but no matter how I tried to mix the words around, "dangle" and "balls" just couldn't go together in the title without making unintended references.

Also, because I was a nervous wreck today.

Obviously this happens to me frequently since I write about it a lot on this blog, but it doesn't make it any easier.  Some days I just handle the huge responsibility of my work load better than others.  Today all I could see was the big picture of everything in the world that I had to do (personally and professionally) and it panicked me so badly that I couldn't concentrate on a single task.  I even had to take a break in one of the empty offices by sitting on the floor in the dark, trying to calm my breathing and empty my mind.  Of course, this didn't work because I really think it might be impossible to clear my head of all thoughts.  I've tried oh, so many times, but there's always something going on up there.  Plus I have the attention span of a kid in a candy store.  My brain is always frantically running from one subject to another so fast that I tend to loose the thread of my own inner dialog every few minutes or so.

I'm not kidding though, I literally lasted 4 minutes in that dark room before getting up and walking out more frustrated than when I started.

And it felt like 20 minutes.

But, I'm sure tomorrow will go much better, because it usually works out that way.

Day 232: Cheap Shot

My lame attempt at capturing the sunset cloud.

So tonight on my way to the temple I noticed the awesome pink cloud domineering the sky.  I was pulling out of a parking lot so I didn't have a lot of time to take a picture.  Still, I whipped out my camera as fast as I could and snapped a few quick shots without checking the settings.

The pictures turned out like crap.

Luckily I like to edit the heck out of every picture I take, so I was able to salvage at least one of them.

Day 230: Fire Mountain

A view of tonight's sunset from my front porch.

I almost didn't get this shot out of pure stubbornness.  Christine told me how cool the sunset was looking, but I had already taken a picture, and I suddenly felt a wave of annoyance that she would assume that I needed picture ideas.

Idiot.

I always need picture ideas, and yet I always scoff when people give me any.

Luckily I realized I was being ridiculous and got up to see what she was talking about.  

Awesome view!  Click! 

Too bad it didn't turn out as bright on the photo.  It was practically red in real life.

Day 218: Highlighted

A grove of trees

So, I realize that the last few weeks I've alternated between pictures of trees and pictures of things up close, but I don't really care tonight.  I saw this tree as I was pulling into the parking lot at the temple, and I loved it so much that I braved the cold (in my skirt) and made the trek across the icy parking lot to get the best angle. The sun was highlighting the trunk of the tree so beautifully that it literally caught my eye as I drove past it.  That's the kind of picture I should stop to take more often.

Now, if only I had gotten a clean shot of it.  Every picture I took of this tree was just a bit off somehow.  I was very sad when I downloaded them onto my computer and realized that none of them captured the beauty of the moment.

Oh well.  Better luck next time, right?

Day 183: Half-way Point!!!!

Sunset in my back yard.

Today marks the last day of month 6 and is the official half-way point in the photo project!  I made it half-way!!  Yay for me!  Tomorrow I start on the second half of the year, which is awesome and a little bit scary because I ran out of ideas a long time ago.  But I'm hoping with the holidays coming up, I'll have a lot more opportunity to take some good shots.

Thanks to everyone who reads and comments on this blog!  I know your numbers are few, but it is a tremendous boost to me on days when I'm ready to give up because I can't stand the sight of my camera!

Some things I've learned so far:
*You don't know if you're good at something until you try
*Consistency is a nightmare, but totally worth it!
*You can accomplish anything if you put your mind to it.
*Cameras are expensive, sure, but printing the photos on 14x16 mat-board is worse
*Photography looks much cooler on paper than it does on the screen
*It's OK to let yourself be proud of your accomplishments every now and then
*It doesn't matter how many times my mom, or others, praise my pictures, I'll always be a little embarrassed at the compliments.

Day 176: A Roadtrip of Epic Proportions

My car's silhouette in the sunset.

So...the most interesting day.  We left for Washington (state) at 4am, the usual time.  We checked the weather before we left to make sure we were clear of the "storm," and we packed the car to the brim with provisions in case we got stuck by the weather.  We were prepared.

Then, on the border of Utah and Idaho we got suck on a closed freeway for 4 hours.  I have no idea why it was closed, but they had it scheduled for closure until 8am.  Too bad they didn't actually open it until 11am.

Frustrated as we were at the huge loss in time, we carried on, hoping we wouldn't be too late to get to our destination before sunset.  We were doing fairly well until my tire blew outside of Boise.  Luckily for Christine and I we were able to pull over quickly before the rim got damaged.  We had to fish through our tightly packed car to reach the spare tire in the back, and then when we got it out with the jack we realized we were missing a part.  It was nothing we couldn't handle though...we made do with what we had.  We got that baby changed in about 20 minutes, which we were pretty proud of considering our circumstances!  When we got to Boise, we started shopping for a tire place to get a replacement for the doughnut.

I'm not sure why, but every single citizen of Boise decided that today was a great day to get their snow tires installed for the season.  We found 3 tire stores within a mile of each other, and they all had a 2 hour wait.  We were blessed to get the nicest technician at one tire store who managed to push us up to the front of the line, but gave us the bad news that my tires aren't in stock.  Also, because my car is all wheel drive, I can't just replace one tire, I have to replace at least 2.  And, since they didn't have my tire, I had to replace all 4.

So..one hour and $700 later, we were back on the road to Washington.  We didn't leave Boise until 4pm, when we're usually in the middle of Oregon by Noon...so frustrating!  Once we left Idaho, we had no problems and made it to Vic and Mona's house in record time (for how long we had to go).

I officially hate Idaho.

Day 175: Storm Warning

The calm before the storm

We heard all sorts of very scary warnings about the storm today I mean, I was waiting for the next snow apocalyps the way they were talking about it.  We were supposed to be snowed in for three days, and then...

a few snowflakes and a lot of wind, for about 10 minutes.

But hey, let's close all the schools and businesses just in case it blows us all away!

At least we had an awesome sunset because of it.  Unfortunately I was driving on the freeway during the awesome sunset, so this is as close as i got to it.  It turned out to be a blessing for me and my sister though.  We didn't have to postpone our trip to Washington.

Day 167: Mountain Light

Sunset on the mountains in PG

Poor Christine was home sick today from the stomach flu.  I thought I was having sympathetic symptoms at work because I was a bit nauseous all day (and I can't have gotten sick from Christine since she's been out of town until last night), but I came home to find out that Mom had the same problem.  It turns out that we weren't suffering from sympathetic illnesses, it was the cake Mom made last night.  I guess the sugar-free ingredient, Maltitol, has some undesirable side effects when consumed in high quantities.

Which means Mom and I had a little too much cake between last night and this evening...heh.

I like cake, dang it!

Day 163: Puppy Love

Clare and Lucy

A few weeks ago, Clare asked me if I would take a few pictures of her and her dog, Lucy.  I was excited to do it, not only because I've never taken "portraits" of pets before, but because I haven't seen Clare in ages and I was excited to catch up.  We drove out to this park near Utah lake.  I forget the name, but it was great!  It had such varied landscaping that we were able to walk around it and get tons of different backgrounds.  Of course, all my favorites shots turned out to have the tree-lined sunset in the background, but that's not really shocking.

It was really fun to take pictures with Clare and watch her very hyper puppy run around and try to jump out of her leash.  We laughed a lot.  I froze my fingers off because I forgot my gloves.  Little Lucy almost had a fit of excitement over the ducks in the duck pond.  And poor Clare literally got knocked onto her back, feet flying through the air, as Lucy sprinted towards something while still on her leash.

It was a good evening!

Day 161:

Tonight's sunset.

This is what happens with daylight savings.  I was at work at 4:30PM.  I was walking by one of the windows and saw a spectacular sunset.  At 4:30PM! 

I tried to get outside to capture it in time, but the streams of sunlight that I saw originally had already faded.  Still, I got a few good shots.

Dang that daylight savings.  A week ago I would have been able to get that shot from home.

Day 149: Commute

Sunset from the freeway.

I was stuck in traffic tonight on my way home from work.  Not surprising.  But as I was waiting at a red light, I looked out my passenger-side window to see this gorgeous sunset.  I was able to get a couple of shots in before the light turned green.  I'm glad I did it too, because I totally spaced out my picture tonight until right before bed.  That's what happens sometimes when you're ADD.  :)

Day 142: Tree Envy

A tree by the side of the road.

Today I left the office at 5:10pm to go home.  It normally takes me anywhere between 14-18 minutes to get home from work, but today was different.  Today, the line of cars waiting to get onto the freeway stretched all the way to the road in front of my office building.  That may not sound like a long way unless you know where my office is in relation to the freeway.  It's maybe half a mile (might be closer to a mile, I'm not sure).

That half-mile stretch took me 39 minutes to cross because of traffic.  THIRTY-NINE minutes to go half a mile.  During that time, I admired the scenery.  The trees are turning red and yellow in sparse patches on the mountains, and the fields of crops looked beautiful with the stark contrasts from the sunset.  Since most of the time during my half-mile journey I was at a dead stop, I took some pictures as I waited.

The picture above looked much cooler in person, but the shot on my camera turned out horribly.  It was faded and hazy.  Obviously over-exposed.  But since I don't have the good editing software on my home computer, I had to be creative.  I don't hate the way the shot turned out, but it's also not right.

Oh well, at least I had some fun!

Day 133: Marbled Sky

Sunset

I was trying to get a picture of the cloud trails in the sky with this shot, and although the cloud trails are visible, they are dwarfed by the sunset.  Unexpectedly cool.

I was planning on writing something lame here, to go with what I assumed was a lame shot, but now I'm wondering what to write.  I'm still in a foul mood over this project, but oddly enough, the annoyance I feel is actually fueling me onward instead of spiraling to the pit of despair.

I'm not saying I'm super hyped or anything.  But it's a start.

I still feel like whining about it, but I won't.

Instead, here's this.  A story of how tonight I nearly gave myself a heart attack in a matter of - maybe - 3 seconds.  And I am not exaggerating that time frame.

Just now, as I was trying to type this entry, I heard movement upstairs.  It was just the neighbors stomping around in their house, but because Christine mentioned earlier that she freaked herself out by mistaking the neighbors and our cat for intruders (and because the house is dead quiet and Christine is fast asleep), I immediately thought there was someone in the house.  BUT, before I could remind myself that it was highly unlikely to have intruders, an entire scene played out in my head in a matter of milliseconds.  I saw a killer break in the front door and wander around the living room before sniffing us out,  finding the stairs to the basement and pounding down them so fast as to render escape - or any movement - impossible (as if being cornered in the basement weren't trapped enough).  I saw the killer round the corner to my bedroom and tear down the hallway in a mass of noise and murderous rage.  I saw him fling open my door and head straight for me without a second's hesitation.

The vision was something akin to a scene from 28 Days Later, and my heart rate spiked so quickly from the split-second horror that I felt like I'd been given an electric shock.  I freaked myself out so badly that the air was sucked right out of me.  I found myself staring wide-eyed and horror-struck at the door to my bedroom.  Frozen in fear, unable to move, or even dispel the vacuum in my chest and draw a breath, waiting for the psycho killer with lightning-fast stair skills to come charging around the corner in a bloody, screaming rage...with arms outstretched to rip me in pieces with his bare hands.

A second later my voice of reason caught up with my imagination, and I was able to draw a shaky breath and look away from the door.  Hand over my heart, and chuckling at my ridiculous imagination, I turned back to my computer with suddenly nothing to say.

Now let's see if you can go to sleep without nightmares.

Day 110: Almost Alone

Jasper.

My mom thought of this picture idea and title, so I'm not sure how legal it is for me to put it on here since it wasn't my original thought, but whatever.

This is the last picture in my "Alone" theme.  Even though I was technically only alone the first 2 days of this week, I still tried to think of reasons I liked being alone, but frankly they were all a stretch - except for the first one.  This last picture is a testament to the fact that even though everyone else in the house may leave, our cats will always stay behind.  So no matter how alone I think I am, I've always got these guys trailing me around the house.  It's a nice feeling when I get bouts of loneliness or fear, to know that I can talk to the cat's and not feel quite as cuckoo as I would talking to myself.

Not quite.

As a side note, I took this picture of the sunset tonight, but it didn't go along with my theme.  This is the sun through the huge smoke cloud from the fires in Herriman.  Scary fire.

Day 102: Light is Alive

The light from the setting sun.

Light is amazing!  Especially sunset.  If there's one thing I've learned over the years of taking pictures is that sunset is my favorite time of day to capture.  Something truly magical happens when the sun just begins to touch the ground.  Everything flares up in beautifully stark contrasts and shadows become more defined.  Faces glow in beauty, flowers and plants become transparent and radiant, lakes and rivers shine golden and deep blue, and the light surrounds everything so tangibly, it feels as if you could touch it.  This shot of the sunset light is the perfect embodiment of why I love the sunset so much.  It looks like a cloud of light that is moving down the street: a real, corporeal thing that comes to life for only a few minutes each day.  THAT is why I love the sunset, because it's alive with possibilities!