I Heart Faces, Photo Challenge Week 13 - "Dramatic B&W"

I took this picture shortly after my D90 arrived, just playing with it to see what it could do. It was the later part of winter, and my hands were so dry that day! But, I took the picture anyway. I ended up liking it, so I thought I would use it for this week's photo challenge at I Heart Faces.

I don't know why, but this picture evokes a lot of emotion for me. I think it embodies a lot of life—my love for my husband, the ups and downs of the past 8-1/2 years of marriage, the fact that I'm a mom now, and so much more. When I took it, I was just sitting by our patio door, feeding my daughter lunch, and I liked the way the daylight was coming in. So, I snapped it. I'm glad I did—if for no one else's enjoyment but my own. This photo is almost like a journal entry to me. It reminds me of the day my husband proposed, of the day we shopped for wedding bands, the day we got married, the past few years with all their different emotions and changes, the day I first held my daughter, and so much more. 

I really like the full-color version, too:

A Bridge on a Very Nice Day

Bridges do more than just connect land masses or allow you to cross things you wouldn't otherwise be able to cross. They're part of the journey. They bring a different view to the world. They are a marvel—how do they stay up? These are just some of the reasons they fascinate me. They make me wonder, what's over there? What kind of wonderful things lie on the other side? I know—it's a very Anne Shirley view of things. :o)

This is another view of the bridge at Veterans Park. I took this on a hike with my family at the end of this past Winter. It was a warm, beautiful day, and it was so refreshing to experience.

Where I want to be . . .

Perdido Key, FL

Bridge at Veteran's Park

Our little family visited Veterans Park (Lexington) recently, and took a nice long walk through the meadows and woods. It was a really beautiful day, as you can see! I like bridges a lot, as I've mentioned before, so I couldn't help but stop and snap a few pics of this one. I don't even know what stream this is, though. It's a nice spot, and I really enjoyed being able to get outside and playing in the nice weather. Our dd has been walking for a little while now, too, so it wad a blast watching her deal with new terrain. :o)

The Beach

Ahhh . . . the beach. There's just no place like it! I get so much energy from being by the sea. We just got back from a mini beach vacation, and it was so nice to be there once again. It restores something in me.

The water was still a bit cold, but we enjoyed being on the sand, the warm sun, and watching the waves crash. Our weather was mostly beautiful with just a little bit of cloudiness and rain the first day—but, then again, is there ever a bad day when you're at the beach? Can't wait to go back!

Cardinal

Cardinal

(Cardinalis cardinalis)

Did you know that the Cardinal is the state bird for about seven states—including Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia? And that they're a type of finch? I love cardinals. I love when they are perched at the top of a tree on a clear day, and singing at the top of their lungs to the setting sun, whose rays are brightly displaying their bright, bright red feathers. I've always thought they sound a lot like a lazer gun. You know like you use to play as a kid? Pewwww . . . pew-pew-pew! They are indeed one of my favorite songbirds. There has been a pair of them frequenting our feeders, but the female has been a bit too elusive for me to capture. This studly male just sat there for a while belting out his favorite tune for quite a few minutes. I snapped 65-70 shots of him, but I think I liked this one the best. He was just showing off. :o) Don't you just love how red he is?

Blocks

I love these blocks! They were a special Christmas gift for my DD from her aunt and uncle. These blocks were made in Michigan with Lake Michigan lumber, and I just might love them more than my DD does, right now. Well, she loves tearing down what we build. :o) These alphabet blocks are by Uncle Goose, which is out of Comstock Park, MI. They're so colorful and fun, so I had to snap a picture of a tower I was working on . . . before "the destroyer" came through.

I Heart Faces, Photo Challenge Week 10 - “Jump For Joy!”

This week's photo challenge theme at I Heart Faces is "Jump for Joy." As I get to know my camera, I think these are fun to participate in. They help me test things out and experiment a bit.

This past weekend was beautiful! I think the high on Sunday was around 60 degrees, so we got outside. My dd started walking in January, and hasn't been able to spend a ton of time outside since then, so this was one of her first adventures as a toddler in "the wild." :o) She loved it! Watching her was cracking us up because whenever she would start to fall or loose control, she just started laughing like crazy. Her falls were usually accompanied by the traditional, "Uh-oh," too. It was so much fun!

This picture was taken as she was being tossed in the air by her daddy, and he had just caught her. I was actually trying to catch a mid-air shot, but I really like this one, too. I wish we had a happy baby. :o)

Valentine

Valentine's Day was about a month ago, now, but I've been snapping pics of the flowers my husband gave me ever since then. They stayed fresh for a long time, and I've just loved having them around. They finally started dying just this past week, and I had to take a couple more shots of them with my fancy new camera. Aren't they beautiful? Didn't he do a good job? This was actually the first year I got flowers and chocolates for Valentine's Day. I'm typically not the flowers/chocolates kind of girl, but he put some good thought into this one. I don't like roses. So, he got me this beautiful array of spring flowers. They were gorgeous! And, I love chocolates, but I hate those assorted chocolates that you find everywhere around V-Day. Reason? I hate nuts in my chocolate, and I don't like cherry flavoring, so I hate sorting through all the ones I don't like just to get to the ones that I do like. Sigh. I know . . . I'm picky. What can I say? I know what I like. Anyway, so my husband went to a local chocolatier and got me a whole big thing of chocolates, and ALL of them were chocolate and caramel . . . my favorite! I didn't have to pick through any of them, because they were all what I like! It was soooooo thoughtful! It was a really special, sweet Valentine's Day, and I felt so loved.

Nature's Fireworks

Queen Anne's Lace

(Daucus carota)

I'm not a Photoshop expert, but I'm working at learning the in's and out's of the program a bit more. And, no, I don't intend to turn this into a PS tutorial blog. The original of this picture was taken on a hiking trip in our area. When I was playing with it in PS, I ran a couple of PW's actions, then added a sepia tone. Love it! I was surprised to see how much these steps made this flower look like fireworks against the night sky.








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Tree at Buckley

On a recent hike through the Kentucky woods, I stumbled across this very interesting tree. What made it interesting was the bark. It had all these really deep grooves in it, all the way up the trunk. The detail was truly incredible. No two parts were alike. I could have looked at it for hours and not seen the same pattern or shape. This view is looking straight down the trunk to the lichen around the bottom of the trunk. I have another picture that I'll post another time that shows the detail even better. This reminds me of the limitless details of our Creator.

Woodford Reserve Distillery

Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey at

Woodford Reserve distillery in Versailles, KY

I Heart Faces “Hands-On Fun” Photo Challenge, Week 8

As I get to know my new camera, I thought it'd be fun to participate in one of these iheartfaces photo challenges. I know it's not nature photography, so you'll just have to bear with me as I experiment with my new toy.

My little one LOVES these little farm animal toys that her "Grammy" got for her. When she squeezes them, they make the animal noises. She loves clutching them and squeezing them over and over and over and over and over . . . . Well, you get the picture. It's fun though, because she mimics their sounds now, too. When I read about this current photo challenge, I grabbed my camera and snapped this shot after the duck had finished his quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack. Doesn't she have the cutest, sweetest little hands?

Fun with my new camera

I've been having a lot of fun, spending quality time with my new Nikon D90. :o) I've just been playing around with it to see what it can do. It came with a Nikon 28-80mm AF lens, and a Tokina 70-210mm telephoto manual zoom lens. I'm having a blast! And I haven't really even gotten out in creation to do some serious photo snapping.

Taken in my office (also my little one's playroom)
using the Nikon lens . . .

The forsythia bushes by our patio, taken using the telephoto lens . . .

Invasive house sparrow in the forsythia bush by our patio, taken using the telephoto lens . . .

More fun to come!

Roupes Creek

Roupes Creek

Tannehill State Park

McCalla, AL

Trailside at Buckley

These plants lined the trail we hiked recently at Clyde E. Buckley Wildlife Sanctuary-Trust and Audubon Center in Frankfort, KY. There wasn't anything particularly breathtaking about the scenery along our path. But, there were many, many little pieces of breathtaking scenery that you would only notice if you stopped and looked closely at the minute details surrounding you.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Flowers from my beloved on Valentine's Day . . . aren't they gorgeous?!

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

—Shakespeare's 116th sonnet

We have a winner!

And the winner is . . . . comment #31 on "GIVEAWAY: Win one of my prints!", Michelle!

Congratulations, Michelle! You won the matted photo print of your choice! I'll be in touch to find out which picture you'd like.

Thanks to all who entered and said such sweet things about my pictures. It's so much fun for me, and even more fun to share them with you. Thanks for sharing my blog on your blogs, Facebook, and for following. Happy Friday!

Porch of Woodford Reserve

My family (13-month-old in-tow) and I recently made our first pilgrimage to Woodford Reserve distillery in Versailles, KY. For you Northerners, that's pronounced Ver-say-allz (not the traditional French pronunciation). This is only the second Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey distillery I've been to, but this was my favorite of the two. We walked in after a nice hike at a local natural area, and the folks there treated us like royalty! Apparently, we had just missed the last tour of the day, and they wanted us to have as much of the full experience as we could anyway. One very nice gentleman took us on a "porch tour" where he pointed out all the various points of interest from the front porch. He then escorted us inside to our very own personal viewing of the Woodford story on DVD. After that, he walked us straight to the tasting bar, where he guessed that we were from Colorado. No, but thank you! We were genuinely flattered. Then they made sure that we knew we were welcome to look around. Very nice! The bourbon was really good, too. We're definitely going back there. Nice atmosphere, and nice folks. Maybe next time we'll take the real tour, or sit in a rocker on the front porch and sip some bourbon.

Good news . . . I just bought a camera!

I am so very stoked about the purchase I just made! I've been shopping around for a new camera with the wonderful little fund that my husband set up for me (contributed to by several generous family members for Christmas, birthdays, etc.). And, I just bought a Nikon D90! I'm so excited, because this is a HUGE step up from the camera I have been using. It's not my dream $5000+ set-up, but it's definitely a step in that direction. I got it second-hand, because we all know what a bargain shopper, second-hand nut I am. :o) I just CAN'T bring myself to buy brand new. It's coming with two different lenses and all the in-the-box accessories. Anyway, the "new" camera should be here by this time next week, and I'm so excited. Did I mention that I'm excited? AAAAHHHH!