Self portrait

I'm still trying to get caught up with this photo challenge.  This picture is super dark because our kitchen is pretty dimly lit but I was in no mood to have a photo shoot with myself so this is what we get.  This is where I can be found most evenings.  I come home and put my gym clothes on (so I have no excuse not to get up and go the next morning) and start dinner.  The glass of wine is mandatory.

f/5, 1/13 sec, ISO 1600, 40mm

{this moment}

{this moment} - A simple moment from this week that I want to tuck neatly into my memory and remember for years to come. Inspired by SouleMama.  If you'd like to play along, leave a link to your moment in the comments!

More Blogging

So I still have a bunch of photo challenge weeks to catch up on but I need to take some more pictures first.  You can expect me to be blogging a little more.  I started this blog 2 years ago which is a joke considering that before today I had two posts.  But I originally started it as a way to keep people up to date while I broke my facebook addiction during lent.  Well I successfully gave up FB two years ago and I gave up meat last lent.  Since I've cut out a lot of meat in my diet in general, I felt like it would be cheating to give that up for lent again and I really enjoyed my time away from facebook 2 years ago.  So here we go again.  Here are some catch up pictures from the holidays.

Annual Holiday dinner with some of my favorites

 Making cookies with my grandmother

 First real Ravens game on Christmas Eve

 The DS was clearly a hit

 The matching shirts were not planned

 Garrett wearing the birthday boys hat on NYE

 Happy Birthday to Dave

Good friends to ring in the New Year (which we almost missed we were so engrossed in a board game). 

So that's about it for the holiday catch up.  Now we're right in the middle of the mildest winter I can remember and I'm planning out my seed order already.

I Dreamed a Dream

First fire of the winter and these lazy bones stole the best spot!

f/3.5, 1/5 sec, ISO 1600 No Flash

Made with Love

Garrett's class made a house from the Three Little Pig's book right before Christmas.  Mike picked him up one day and there was a flurry of whispers and wrapping.  Garrett decided it should be a Christmas gift from me.  It was very sweet because I knew how hard he had worked on the picture but it's not exactly something we had room to keep around forever.  We compromised and decided to take a picture with him and the house.

f/4.5 1/20sec ISO 1600

Resolution

So I commited to doing a weekly photo challenge based off this one with some friends from work. I really need to make an effort to learn to use this camera of mine after taking the same photography class twice now!!! It started the first week of the year and I've been taking pictures but am just getting around to posting them. They're really not great and I'm convinced I need to get a better lense before these amount to anything but here goes......

One of my resolutions this year was to make an effort to see my family and friends more often.  Since I consider my sister and brother-in-law to be both, I think we killed two birds with one stone.             

Lets try this again

Okay, so I may or may not be terrible at this whole blogging thing.... But I'm going to do like I did with the whole college thing and give it one more shot.  The stakes are a little lower but I'm optimistic.  So we've moved to the country, bought a house and gotten a second dog since I posted... oh 18 months ago.  We've got a ton going on with the house and are slowly getting stuff accomplished.  Mike says I have project ADHD.  I start a project and before it's even finished, I'm planning the next one.  It really isn't conducive to getting projects finished.  I've always resisted his label but after last weekend I'm not sure I have a leg to stand on.  We were not even 1 wall into painting the living room/dining room combo when I decided the molding around the door needed to replaced and promptly started removing it.  My arguement was that it would be easier to paint closer to the door rather than paint around the tape but really I was just tired of painting.  So the room is painted and I'm in love with the color and our dining room table arrived from Restoration Hardware this morning and I. am. obsessed.

In other news, Thanksgiving was full of great food and great company.  My grandmother passed away a few weeks ago and Thanksgiving was always her holiday.  I remember growing up and going over to her house the night before with my mom and aunts to start the cooking.  We always joked that she never had the patience for kids but she sat down and helped me make pies more years then I can remember.  The last few years were hard as the dementia really set in and she had to be supervised.  She wanted to help more than she was able to but her face still lite up when she was surrounded by all of those dishes she had perfected over the years.

She was missed tremendously this year but my mom and Aunt Nichole have carried on her tradition and I know that she was all around us that day.  I think next year I will attempt to make one or two of her pies since we've opted for store bought for a while now.  Here's a shot of some of the kids.  I took about 15 and didn't get a single one with them all looking and smiling.  It's great to see all the kids running around together and it reminds me that we need to get everyone together more often.

This week we are quickly making plans to prepare for Christmas.