Day 20: Project 365

In February of last year, I was invited to create a table setting for the annual gala given by Mainly Mozart. There were about 30 designers in San Diego who were invited to do this. The theme was simply "Love, Music, Mozart" as it was the week before Valentines Day.

Here's a close-up shot:



I used around 100 locally grown roses of various varieties, feathers and other greenery on a wrought iron stand. The favors were hand-made chocolates from Chuao Chocolatier.

Day 19: Project 365

This is what love looks like.

I adore this photo. Tony and I got married on 09.09.09, but we had a small ceremony for friends and family at my mom's house the following Saturday. My mom's dear friend took this shot of us after dinner.

I was watching "Platinum Weddings" last night after the kids went to bed. The featured couple put on a lavish wedding to the tune of over $800,000.00. My first question is, what the hell do these people do that they can afford to throw away that kind of money on one evening? The second question in my mind is, who are they trying to impress?? Even if we had the money, I don't think we would even dream of spending that kind of cash on our wedding. That could buy a house for all three kids.

Tony asked me if I wished that we had had a big wedding with all of the trimmings. My reply was simply this: No. What we did was perfect for us and our family. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Day 18: Project 365

My iPhone is being monopolized by a certain little four year old who has been hit with the creeping crud, so I thought I would post some images that Tony and I have taken over the past year or so. Tip: toddlers love the "Talking Carl" application for iPhone.

This bamboo grove is happily thriving away at the San Diego Botanic Gardens. Tony and I took a walk there last spring. He got some other amazing shots that we have hanging in our bedroom. I had them framed for his birthday last month.

Day 5-A: Project 365

OK. I figured out how to transfer my photos from my iPhone to my computer. And I did it without tangling up my system in the process.

After I picked Payton up from school today, we took a little trip to the beach. It was rather chilly and windy, so we stayed clear of the ocean. The booty for the day included a flat grey rock, a hand full of colorful striped seashells and the perfect sand-digging stick that Payton is so artfully playing with above.

Oh... Surfers are crazy. Just sayin'.

Day 5: Project 365

Our big dog. He went to the vet yesterday because his back feet are a mess. They are red and swollen and itchy. The vet took skin scrapings and determined that it was most likely some sort of contact allergy. He now on 14 days of antibiotics and an antihistamine. Poor thing. His insides are going to be all wonky. Sadness.

Sorry - again. Didn't take this photo today - nor did I take the photo! This one is Tony's but is very appropriate for today so I thought I would use it. For some reason when I e-mail photos from my iPhone, they can only be saved as "Scrap". That doesn't do me any good! Tony is the technical wizard in our household and hopefully he can teach me how to download them through iTunes. I'm clueless and afraid I'm going to mess something up that can't be fixed.

Day 4: Project 365

I know. I didn't take this picture yesterday. It's from a few weeks ago, but I had to share. Tony and I packed up the kids and the dog and headed to Julian for a picnic and some snow. Bonsai had a blast.

Day 3: Project 365

Cool, dry weather means much static.

Day 2: Project 365

This is a few days late. I was experiencing technical difficulties getting the image off of my iPhone.

This lovely dino pile is from Friday. Payton loves to "play with animals". This usually ends up in the mountain of plastic that I snapped the photo of. Friday was a rough day for me health-wise, but we managed to have a good time despite the kidney stones.

Day 1: Project 365

I needed something warm and cozy. This scarf took about 2 hours to make - P hook with Lion Brand Wool Ease Thick & Quick yarn - two skeins.

A shining accomplishment

With everything negative that has been strolling through my brain and life in the past few weeks, somehow this amazingly positive experience slipped through the cracks. I mentioned in an earlier post that I was going to teach myself how to bake. I gathered up my tools and ingredients and gave it a shot. The results were amazing: warm, sticky, golden brown caramel apple sticky rolls. Holy crap. My house smelled heavenly for days.

I got to use yeast and sugar and cinnamon and everything. I made such a mess. There was flour and butter everywhere.



The thing that makes these rolls so special is that there are diced apples laced through the gooey caramel sauce. The recipe says that you can add apple liqueur to the caramel. I think I may try that next time for a more intense flavor.

Letting them rise a second time before baking. What you don't see is the huge, beaming smile on my face.

These rolls are fabulous. I'm going to make a variation of them for Christmas gifts for friends and family. Minus the apples but with a crazy yummy coffee maple glaze instead.

This recipe came from Ree Drummond of Pioneer Woman fame. Her link is in my sidebar. Big thanks to Tony (again) for the amazing photos and help with the clean-up. He was well rewarded!

Seaside walk

Yesterday morning, I asked Tony to show me how to use his camera. It's not just the little cutesy metallic green point-and-shoot cameras that most of us mamas have. Oh no. It's one of those big black ones with all the buttons and knobs and it has all kinds of attachments like lenses and lights and things. And a big black bag that he carries it all around in and God help him if it ever got stolen or damaged. I have never seen my Zen Master of a husband angry, but I'm definitely sure that steam would pour out of his ears and quite possibly lightening would stream down from the sky and zap an innocent grandma in the wazoo.

In my quest for learning how to do new things, I asked him a whole bunch of questions about what makes a good photographer. I mean, two people could take a picture of the same thing and the image by the everyday tourist would look just OK and the other by the trained photographer would capture the pure essence of what that object is inside and out. What makes the difference? We spoke about angles and lighting and lens types and composition and editing. I get the lingo because I have taken many a college art course and studied Art History more than most people would care to admit. I've dabbled a bit in photography, but that was many many years ago. I never really took to it because I didn't like turning into a bat and bumping about blindly in the darkroom. No thank you. Since then the whole digital revolution has come about and that is something entirely foreign to me. USB cables and Photoshop and who knows what else.

So we hoofed it down to the Oceanside Pier and Harbor. The pelican is Tony's shot, but the other three are mine. He tinkered with Picassa and here are the results. Hooray me.

This pelican was showing off for a little crowd of squealing children. He had it pretty good, seeing as it was the end of the day and there was little to no luck in the fish-catching department. He got the spoils of the left-over bait. Lucky duck... I mean lucky pelican.

This is a shot from under the Oceanside Pier. The waves were still rather large from the remnants of the Samoan earthquake. It was really something to see them crashing through the posts. Tony added a sepia tone and adjusted the sharpness and contrast. There was a small tweak on the angle as well.

There was a bike rental shop just below the pier. This image was cropped just a bit to focus on just the lines of the bike frames.

This shot was taken over by the Oceanside Harbor. I like the two blues with the sharp white trim. Just a small crop on this one.