365.65: My First HDR Attempt

Downloaded a free version of Photoshop Elements 8 last week and this was the first thing I tried to do with it. Hopefully, I'll get a little better with time. Man, I'm lagging on this blog....

365.64: Favorite # 3: Cookie Recipe

Exposure: 0.077 sec (1/13)
Aperture: f/4.5
ISO Speed: 800
This is probably one of the best chocolate chip cookie recipes I've ever encountered. And believe me- I've tried a few of them. Its crispy on the outside but chewy on the inside. How can you ask for anything more?

365.63: What Do You Get When an Elephant Sits on a Grape?

Exposure: 0.005 sec (1/200)
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO Speed: 200

A little WINE!!! (Whine) Get it? LOL...one of the lame jokes I remember from my Elephant Joke book circa 1982. I wanted to try and get some cool grape shots at
the Temecula wineries...but a few things were keeping me back. 1. It was hotter than Hades (but not as hot as Phoenix) and B. I was rushing cuz I think I may have been trespassing. I was waiting for an old man to come running out of his house, waving his walking cane yelling "GET OFF MY LAWN!!" We went to a couple wineries- first, Wilson Creek wine. Super cute place. Huge lawns to picnic on. A little park for the kiddos. A huge tasting area. But I guess others thought it was super cute too cuz holy cow, was it busy. You couldn't turm without bumping into someone's fake boobs. Seriously- all there was there were girls getting drunk on wine. Anyway, the vineyard was kind of fenced off so we ditched the blondes with the plastic tatas, jumped in the car and headed for another vineyard. We stopped by a smaller, more hidden winery and as luck would have it, the long winding drive way up to the main house was flanked with grape vines. I told CMB to stop and park on the side so I could jump out of the car and take some shots. I may have stepped over a No Trespassing sign- I'm not sure. So I clicked as fast as I could before anyone could tell me to leave. I got about 10-12 shots but half of them were overexposed. I had my flash on and didn't realize it cuz I was shooting away before I got yelled at. Oh well...I'll have to go back before August is over to try and get some good shots. Too bad I can't taste wine.

365.62: Favorite #2...

Exposure: 0.033 sec (1/30)
Aperture: f/29.0
ISO Speed: 640

My favorite time of day ... just before the sun goes down behind the ocean. This was taken at about 7:45 at Scripps Pier in La Jolla. The photo hasn't been edited- I was too excited to post it. Maybe tomorrow, I'll try to play around with it...but for now, its straight out of the camera...

365.61: Vintage Layer

I took this picture a couple of weeks ago but just recently found out that my tatay** has been holding out on me. I've been living here 3 weeks- going on 4- and I'm just recently discovering that he has Photoshop on his computer. Here's my very first attempt at Photoshop, following a Vintage tutorial.

Before:


After:


**tatay means "dad" or "daddy" in tagalog

365.60: Favorites #1...

Exposure: 0.125 sec (1/8)
Aperture: f/5.0
ISO Speed: 800

Sabrina and I are going to attempt to shoot a few of our favorite things to help get us inspired and practiced up on some basic photography elements. Here's my first in the series- My Favorite Baby Body Part...the Toes! I love these little mini sausage looking digits. The way they curl when I run my finger down the underside of the foot. The way they stretch out when he tries to escape his baby bouncer. The way they feel clammy when you pop them out of their little booties!! I love these little suckers!! SUCK! That's another thing I want to do to these little digits...I may have a problem.

I used Flickr and Picnic to edit this photo from a colored shot to B&W. I also added a vignette around the edges. Lessons learned...I wanted to have the front toes more in focus and the back ones blurred. Next time I see these little things, I'll focus more on the front ones.

Click here for the original colored version!

365.59: I Wanna Hold Your Haaaaannnnddd....

Exposure: 0.077 sec (1/13)
Aperture: f/6.3
ISO Speed: 800

Baby Lukas is simply breath taking. It truly is "Love at First Sight." I can't wait to take more pictures of his little hands, his little toes, his little ears, his little mouth...well, you get the picture. :)

365.58: Happy Birthday, America!

Exposure: 15
Aperture: f/29.0
Focal Length: 41 mm
ISO Speed: 100

I love this time of year. Unfortunately, the last 5 years, we skipped out on the fireworks. Not this year! These are my first attempt at firework shots...taken from my folks front yard.

365.57: Need Repairs?

Exposure: 1/4000 sec
Aperture: f/4.5
Focal Length: 34 mm
ISO Speed: 200

On our 9 hour trip back home, we stopped by this dilapidated car garage. Its no wonder why this went out of business. There was no exit for it- just a dirt road off of the main street. Very inconvenient...We see it all the time on our drive out west. At nights, the frame of the garage stalls are lite up with Christmas lights so someone must be taking care of it!

365.56: He Loves Me, Loves Me Not..

Exposure: 0.005 sec (1/200)
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO Speed: 200


At this rate, it will take me 5 years to complete 365!! Here's a picture of some flowers in the grassy area by the Mission Bay park. This was taken with my super cool new Canon Rebel XSI...cuz I'm a rebel- without a clue. :)

365.55: A Cake Fit for a Thirty Three Year Old

My Mom in law has out done herself again this year. Last year, for my birthday, she couldn't find the spumoni ice cream pie we all love. What did she do? She made one herself...from SCRATCH! This year, she made this yummy almond cake for me. It was two layers of this decadent almond cake with ganache layered in between. Then, it was frosted with a marscapone frosting, topped with candied almonds and dark chocolate shavings. Oh my goodness. It topped the spumoni cake from last year. I have the best mom in law EVER!!

365.54: Upside Down

It was raining today...this was taken after breakfast at the Farmhouse. I love the upside down little orbs. This was taken BEFORE I got my cool new camera!

365.53: A Little Bit of Comfort

When CMB is gone for a few nights, I start to feel like I need some comfort food. I've been craving some chicken matzo ball soup and found this recipe by Coconut & Lime. It didn't disappoint...

365.52: The Beach

Another cheat today...but I like this picture from our Point Loma trip. We walked down to the tide pools to check out all the little sea creatures but, unfortunately, it was high tide. No sea creatures out to play. Instead, I took the opportunity to take some pictures of the ocean and some rocks to take back home to hot AZ.

365.51: The Lighthouse

I've lived in San Diego for 26 years and had never been to the Old Point Loma Lighthouse. I'm glad to say I finally made it up there and hope it won't be my last visit. There were lots of photo opps there and can't wait to get back.

365.50: Sunny Side Up

these unfortunate eggs became today's breakfast with a side of bacon and whole wheat english muffins.

365.49: Almost the End

I bought these flowers 2 weeks ago and it's only now they're starting to wilt. My new goal is to have fresh flowers in our bedroom every week and it looks like these are going to be tossed soon for new ones.

I really like how this looks large. It looks a little underexposed but i think it adds to the wilty darkness of it...

365.48: Bubble and Squeak

Since we had corned beef and cabbage on Saturday, I decided to try another Irish/British type dish- Bangors and Mash- kind of. I followed a recipe for bubble and squeak by Jamie Oliver who isn't Irish but the dish is pretty much bangors and mash- which is Irish. I made an onion gravy to go on top and CMB gave it all a thumbs up. Our picky eater even finished her plate. I'll have to save the recipe for next year! yum...

365.47: Is it Summer Already?

Not quite yet. But these bright towels are ready for the hot sun! They were providing us shade while we were playing euchre outside...pretty soon, they'll be drying us off!

365.46: Found it!

Here it is...holy mackerel. I've found it. It's been hiding this last few weeks but now that I've found it, I'm making sure I keep it close.

365.45: The Pedestal

I bought this cake platter for our Berry Family St. Patty's day festivities this weekend. It will be used on Saturday to plate the cake of all cakes- the Guinness Chocolate Cake. Go out and buy yourself some Guinness, dark chocolate and whipping cream. It's darn good.


Come back Saturday for pictures of the cake...

365.44: Get Along, Little Doggy!

What do you get a 6 year old as a souvenir from TX? Why, a bull whip, of course! What was CMB thinking?? When he went to FL, he got her a cute, snuggly alligator. But a bullwhip??

365.43: Check Your Tension

This is what happens to the thread when your tension is off. The skirt got it worse, I think!

365.42: Nice? Or Naughty....

Pretty white flower...you would have never guessed that it came from this!

A venus fly trap- complete with freshly caught bug. Tasty...

365.41: A Funny Place for Shoes

I changed my photo. :) I figured since our wedding pic is in the frame, I would use my wedding shoes! Yes, I still have them. Yes, I actually wore them on my wedding day. and no, they didn't hurt my feet.




My shiny red shoes hanging off our picture ledge. Our wall looks like a yellow/green- I think because of the bad lighting in the kitchen. It's not really that pukey color...I should have played with the lighting settings on the camera but hey, this is what happens when I'm dog tired and just want to relax. I'm going to retake this during the day (on the weekend) to see how natural lighting will effect it.

365.40: Crazy

Today's theme...crazy. I could have taken a self portrait because I've been feeling a little wacked. But I'm taking a picture of this little bulb that burned out and now our boob tube is broken. This bulb is $250! Crazy!

365.39: The Farm

(click here for a bigger picture)
This morning, we went to The Morning Glory Cafe on the Farm on South Mountain. What a treat! We sat by the garden under pecan trees (At least, I think they were pecan trees. There were pecan trees flanking the drive way.) It was an all organic, locally grown kind of restaurant. AJB and I shared the Monte Cristo- a french toast sandwich with slow baked ham, over easy eggs, yummy cheese and maple syrup. It sounds really weird but this was the best thing I've had for breakfast in awhile. It had that salty sweet thing going. Yum!

After breakfast, we walked around the garden. Here's some more pictures from this morning. I took most of my pictures with my film SLR so once I get them developed, I'll share them as well.

365.38: Family Pic of the Month

Here we are in February...this is a little unconventional since AJB is the main subject and we're just hanging out in the background. I had the aperture set at 2.5 to try and blur out CMB and I but I think I needed to focus or zoom in more on AJB. I'll have to practice that a little more.

365.37: A Picture and a Recipe

Ma po Tofu is a yummy Chinese recipe with tofu, pork and spicy goodness. We usually have everything on hand to make it and its done in 20 minutes. It's super tasty over rice- one of my favorite comfort foods. The only thing I do is double the ground pork and leave out the spicy chile garlic sauce and cayenne since AJB won't eat it spicy. But then we place a big dollop of the chile garlic sauce on top...mixed with steamy white rice...mmm...mmmmmm....good!

365.36: How's it Going Up There?

Colin and I were feeling a little cabin feverish today- me from being behind the fence, him from working from home. Today after work, we surprised AJB by taking her bike and her to the park. After a spin around the little lake, she hung off the monkey bars because- well because she's a monkey. This picture was taken after she fell off (her scrawny arms can't hold on past the second bar) and I was standing on the bars above her. I'm not the mom who will help her kid when she falls. I'm the one who will take pictures of it for future humiliation...

365.35: Laundry

I was going to pile up all my dirty laundry on my bed and then take a picture from the bottom looking up...but I was too embarrass to show the mess. Instead, here's a pic of AJB's laundry basket on her dresser.

ETA: I'm such a moron. I had planned to post this up on the photo scavenger hunt before I went to bed. A couple of glasses of wine later, I went to sleep before posting. DOH!

365.34: Yellow

Today's subject for picture of the day is "yellow." I'm being more efficient and took a picture that will serve a couple of purposes- A. I can submit it for the Photo Scavenger Hunt and B. I can finally update my knitting blog.

365.33: The Beer Version of Us

Him: 6'4 and blond. Me: 5'3 and brown.
His Beer: 1 liter and light. My Beer: 1/2 liter and dark. Nuff said.

365.32: Something Unexpected

Okay, okay...I missed a couple days. Thursday, it was "birds"- we tried to do shadow puppets but the pictures weren't coming out right. I should have used my tripod...Yesterday was "doorknobs." I planned on going to Home Depot to find the doorknob aisle but I would have had to leave my camera in the trunk of my car for most of the day since I was behind the fence. I didn't want to do that. Today's theme is "Take something out of the ordinary and shoot it in FAVORITE aisle at the grocery store!" I guess I could have taken something really out of the ordinary like a fishing pool or something...but I was rushing out the door to run errands and I didn't have time to contemplate how to be creative on this. So, I just grabbed something that was already in my cart and went to my favorite aisle of Sprouts...

365.31: Giggles

Today's subject was "giggles." One of the rules of the scavenger hunt is you can only post a picture you took that day. I got home a little late; by the time I worked out, got home, made dinner, gave AJB a bath, I didn't have time to think of a giggle picture. AJB was in my last picture so I didn't want to use her again for today's shot. Long story short, I didn't post one on FB. I dug up an old one I had saved on my computer. This was taken with my film SLR back in 2007.

365:30: Hungry

I've joined a photo scavenger group on facebook to help me getting one picture a day in. I've been slacking since I started working again- partly because all I want to do is veg on the couch when I get home and partly because I don't have any clue what to take a picture of. This group looks like fun- you get a daily subject for the scavenger hunt. People post their interpretations and vote on the best one. Sometimes there's a prize for the one with the most votes. Today was my first day posting and the subject was "Hungry." As soon as I walked through the doors, AJB asked for something to eat...so, she's my guinea pig for my first assignment!

I also joined a monthly photography scavenger hunt on flickr. I probably won't post on there til next month's list since this month is half gone. The subjects are more challenging and will need a little thought...here's the list for February:


1. Masquerade
2. Septagon
3. Hospitality
4. Marble(s)
5. Urban decay
6. Cherry on top
7. Home delivery
8. Smurf
9. Inner light
10. Lines, Lines, Everywhere Lines
11. Lucky charm
12. I love bokeh
13. Nice guys always finish last
14. Eccentric
15. Silver
16. Simple Life
17. Haircut
18. Eye Candy
19. Red (for Valentine`s Day)
20. Emotions in black & white

365.29: Tricky

Advertisers are very tricky folks. They use words like "Ultra Cheer" to make you think that it's fun doing laundry. Let me tell ya...it's not so much.

365.28: The Left-Overs

The last of the V-Day cookies that Mom brought over to the house. Yum! Sorry these weren't the best quality pictures. My batteries are about to die and I really didn't want to take the time to stage the platter with better lighting. I just got back from Macaroni Grill and I'm stuffed- I just want to lay down on the couch! (Hey, I made it to 3 consecutive days!)

365.27: Endless Love

Exposure: 0.013 sec (1/80)
Aperture: f/2.6
Focal Length: 5.8 mm
ISO Speed: 80

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! I've seen these wedding band shadow pictures on flickr and I wanted to jump on the band wagon for the day of love. I probably should have used the bible, opened to the page of the passage that was read on our wedding day- but A. We don't have a bible and B. I don't think I remember what that passage was. So, I grabbed the most romantic title I had on my bookshelf- Endless Love...Anyone ever read or seen the movie Endless Love? Its about young love- the obsession and passion that the protagonist feels for his girlfriend. The craziness that we all think about doing but he acts upon them. Not really a story that sums up my relationship with CMB but its a good read...

365.26: Early Morning

Exposure: 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture: f/2.6
Focal Length: 5.8 mm
ISO Speed: 200

I'm lucky to have today off to clean the house before my parents' arrival for their annual trek to visit us. This morning, while I was straightening up the front room, the sun was slowly creeping in through the blinds. Since our home is north/south facing, we don't get much light in the main areas so this was a treat. I opened up all the blinds in the room to enjoy it while it lasted.

I've dusted off my nikon n65 film camera. I'm hoping to get some good shots on a photo shooting opportunity I will get with my friend, Kristie, from Photography By Kristie. We're planning on doing a whimsical theme with our daughters and she's going to show me the ropes. I'm SO excited!

365.25: After Breakfast

After breakfast at St. Michael's and playing in the town square, we walked down to this little river. I was hoping that the water would be really still so that the reflection of the tree would be more defined. There was water from the bridge I was standing on that created ripples. Maybe I'll go back on a warmer day to try again.

Exposure: 0.01 sec (1/100)
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 5.8 mm
ISO Speed: 80

365.24: Family Picture Of The Month

There isn't many pictures of us- heck, I think I can count on both hands how many pictures there are with the three of us. Pretty pathetic. So this year, I'm going to do a Family Picture of the Month- or FPOTM. :) I thought of this literally 5 minutes before taking this one so we're a little messy. Hopefully, we can plan our next one and do it somewhere outside since its been so nice out!

365.23: An Impromptu Trip to Sedona

After breakfast at Kiss The Cook Cafe (don't go, it isn't good!), we decided to be spontaneous and go somewhere we've never been to. Two hours later, we found ourselves in Sedona! Word of advice...check the weather before going. There was snow on the ground and 40 degrees out. CMB and I had no jackets!

This picture was stitched together- its actually 3 separate pictures! If you look closely, you can see the seams...click here for a bigger picture.

365.22: Us: In 3D

Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/500)
Aperture: f/2.6
Focal Length: 5.8 mm
ISO Speed: 200

Okay, we're not really in 3D- but in 3D glasses! And since we're all being honest here, this wasn't taken today but last month. Its probably the most recent picture of ACE, so by default, my fave. We saw Bolt, who was in 3D. Cute movie! I want a dog that thinks its a super dog. And a ninja hamster. Oh, and a cat who's too smart for her own good. Where can I get them? Maybe I need to work on how to convince CMB that we couldn't live our lives without a super dog, a ninja hamster, and a smart ass cat.

365.21: Breakfast of Champions'

Exposure: 0.125 sec (1/8)
Aperture: f/2.6
Focal Length: 5.8 mm
ISO Speed: 200

Our first meal of 2009 was Creme Brulee French Toast with a side of maple sausages and fresh fruit. YUM! If you've never had the CB french toast, c'mon over before its gone! It's probably the best thing I make- if I do say so myself. You don't want to pass over the slices with the burny bits. In our household, hands can get stabbed if you move too slow getting the burny bits. Its like the sugary, crunchy topping of the creme brulee- so GOOD!! If losing weight is on your NY res list, you don't want to start your year with this...better yet, start your NY res on January 2nd!