117 posts tagged “photographs”

This is a photo I took of the back of my youngest daughter's Christmas card showing off her "babies".  Our Texas daughter created the card.  If you are interested in more than just the usual photo Christmas card, take a look at her web site, www.sentimentsbysarah.com.  She has examples of cards she has created, including the invitation she created for our 40th wedding anniversary. 

I felt like an antique today, so I made a photo of one of my flowers look old.  I worked yesterday morning, got home at 2:00 and left at 3:00 to go to our son's house for Thanksgiving Dinner.  I had been feeling out of sorts since Tuesday, but just thought I was tired.  We hadn't much more than finished eating when I began to feel bad, still just thinking I was tired since I had gotten up early, etc.  We just barely made it home before I had to make a bee line for the bathroom.  I guess I must have picked up a GI tract bug last week from the grandkids.  I promptly took myself off to bed, but never got to sleep more than two hours before it was back to the bathroom.  Most of the time, it was only an hour. 

Today wasn't too much better.  I got down a piece of toast for breakfast, but the yogurt and banana that I ate for lunch had a war party.  Still I was able to do quite a bit of cooking.  We are going to my daughter's tomorrow for a second turkey dinner.  I didn't have to bring anything on Thursday, but I'm bringing several dishes tomorrow. My cooking today included blueberry applesauce, applesauce salad, cheesecake, mashed sweet potatoes, and custard pie.  The first four things are going with us.  The custard pie is staying here.  The recipe I use is straight out of Betty Crocker.  I'll try to post recipes for the rest yet this evening.  By dinner time, I was running out of steam, so I made super easy creamed tuna and peas using a can of mushroom soup.  I ate mine with some brown rice, and so far, none of it has come back up. 

Today was a beautiful day, but I didn't go outside.  I should have.  We won't have too many more days like today.

Here's the four things I use most often as I prepare my soft foods.  I make all of my cream sauces in the microwave in one of these Pyrex bowls.  I use the spiral whisk to stir everything I cook in the microwave.  If you ever see one of these, buy a dozen and let me know.  I've had this one for years, don't know where I got it, and can't find another one like it.  The hand held blender is my new purchase.  It is so handy to puree a whole pot full of hot soup, or one cup of vegetables.  Mine is a Hamilton Beach.  I still use the big blender for some stuff like cauliflower and sweet pototoes, but this little one gets used lots of times every day. 

It finally stopped raining, after several days and four inches, but it was still cloudy yesterday and today.  I got a couple of shots of the clouds. 

 

 

I went back to some shots I had taken on September 13th for this Quest.  I had fun and learned a few new editing tricks. 

 

Here's Paya looking and listening.  You can see how her ears are pulled forward. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's the same photo edited to look like an overexposed nighttime shot.  I like the way it makes her whiskers stand out. 

Another shot of Paya looking at something and listening.  I like the way one ear is up and one is down. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wanted the edited photo to look like an old photograph. 

 

Here's my third original.  Again Paya looking at something very intently. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's the first series of editing.  I rotated the photo and changed it to black and white.  Then I added the ball. 

 

I also edited this photo by softening the edges of the ball and adding a shadow, but I can't find the photo.  Let me look again.  I know I saved it!

 

 

 

 

 

Well, it's not perfect, but I did learn how to select a shape, soften the edges, and add a shadow.  I need to practice a lot more, but at least now I know how to do it.  I do like the compostition better with the photo rotated.  I think it would have been better if I had put the ball closer to her front leg so you couldn't see the grass.  And the shadow needs to be darker. 

Thanks for pushing me again to learn something new.  It was fun. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I took this shot of Lady on Saturday before I left for work.  I had to take it through the glass in the back door to keep from waking her up.  I was supposed to have Monday off, but they ask me to work anyway.  It wasn't too bad.  We got the orders done and several cakes for the cake case, too.  I worked by myself today.  I had a lot more orders than we usually do on Monday.  Today I felt really good about every cake I decorated.  I felt like I had done the best I could do.  Everyone seemed really happy when they picked up their cake, so that was nice, too.  I did make a couple of unique cakes that I took pictures of, but I will wait until tomorrow to post the pictures.  I want to go watch Monday night football! 

This is the only fall color I have in my yard.  This bush is about 30 years old, but we give it "haircuts" every year or two to keep it from growing too big. 

 

Off to the west of our house, there is a creek with bluffs that get some color in the trees.  They are mostly hardwoods, a lot of oaks, so they don't have the brilliant colors that softwoods do.  In this shot, the sun was peaking through the clouds in just the right place to highlight the trees. 

 

Even though we have had some cold weather, down to 28 on Sunday morning, I still have a few petunias hanging on.  Of course I had to edit this one.  I just love the watercolor effect.  I intensified the color, too. 

The dogs are off for a walk, so I'm going to sneak outside and see if I can find anything to take pictures of and/or dig up in the flower bed.  I know I had a couple of plants that I meant to bring in.  It may be too late! 

I can't remember the last time I had a day off when I didn't have to do anything or go anywhere.  It was really nice.  I slept in and took a nap.  I washed clothes and spent several hours cooking.  My hubby was in the hospital this week because he is having swallowing problems and now he is on a soft food diet.  If you can't feed it to a baby, he can't have it.  So I made broccoli cheese soup for lunch with chocolate pudding.  I had bought a new immersible blender on Friday, so I used that to puree his soup.  It turned out so nice that I pureed all of it.  For dinner, I made mashed potatoes, mashed cauliflower, gravy, and green beans.  He didn't eat any of the green beans.  I ran the cauliflower through the blender with some milk to make sure it was creamy.  He ate some more pudding and I had jello.  I might lose a few pounds if we do this very long, but that wouldn't be a bad thing.  His doctor is supposed to call on Monday with more information about some more tests that he has to go in for next week. 

I finally took time tonight to look at the photos for our family reunion.  There is one of the whole family that is pretty good.  It is hard to get this many people all sitting still and looking in the same direction.

 

This is the whole gang, except for one daughter and her husband.  She was sick, and he was out of town.  Each family is more of less wearing the same color, and is together in the group.  The exception is the red heads in grey.  They got scattered around since their mom and dad weren't there.  I'll see if I can find a picture of the six of them.

 

This is our oldest granddaughter with her baby, and her three sisters and little brother. 

I have to work late again tomorrow, but we shouldn't be too busy, so I might be able to get some more pictures.  All of the cakes and cupcakes that I made last week were gone by Friday.  So, I guess I'll start over!  Plus we took several orders based on the pictures I had taken and placed in our idea book.  That has worked out really well. 

I'm going to go relax and watch some college football. 

It started raining about this time last night and hasn't stopped.  I'm glad I was at work all day.  My shoes and socks got soaked walking across the parking lot this morning, but they dried out after a couple of hours!  I forgot to take my camera this morning.  Darn!  I ended up making a really cute frog cake freehand, more or less, and several really cute pumpkins. 

Since I don't have cake photos to share, I'll go back to our family pictures from Sunday.  I finally figured out where my computer put them!

 

Here's my favorite photo of my great-grandson with his mother.  He was 1 month old on October 1st. 

 

Here's my youngest grandson.  He was born January 26th of this year.  He usually has a great big smile.  I like this more serious look.

 

And last but not least, a close up of the baby.  I was holding him and looking into his eyes when I took this.  My camera has a pre-flash that goes off when you depress the shutter half way so you can focus the camera by pointing it at the subject and depressing the shutter.  I was holding the camera above my head. 

We had a mini family reunion on Sunday.  We had arranged for a photographer to come out to the farm to take family pictures.  Some of the kids wanted shots of their families with a natural background, so we set up a fence and got some bales of straw.  Of course, everyone was taking shots of the groups that the photographer was shooting.  Here's one that our daughter took of my hubby and me.  Not too bad for a couple of old timers! 

I wanted to post some of the photos that I took.  They are on the computer, 'cause I can edit them, but I can't find them when I click on "photos".  Guess I'll have to try again later.  Maybe I can figure out where they are! 

This afternoon we went to preview the photos from Sunday.  I bought some of all the grandkids to give to our kids for Christmas, and we bought a CD with all the shots on it.  So I may have to wait until I get the CD to show you the whole gang.  It isn't easy getting 27 people to look good for a photo.  Especially when one of them is a four year old clown! 

 

I didn't take any cake pictures yesterday.  Mostly cakes for orders.  A couple of them were cute, but I was by myself so I was busy. 

I'm home today and it is rainy and windy, so I'm not in the mood to go out and take any photos, so I'm playing around with my last set of dahlia photos.  Did a little cropping and color, brightness, and contrast adjustment.  I'll see if you can tell the difference. 

 

 

 

I think I like this one best.  Somehow it was in the shade, and since I only have one bloom, one of the dogs must have been helping me out! 

I've got company coming this weekend, so I must do some housecleaning today.  Boo!  Hiss!