January Textures

Jennifer of iffles.com is hosting various monthly photography themes. Last month her theme was textures. I actually got picked for one of her favorites, go ahead check it out.

So I wanted to share my photos from January that fit this texture theme!











February's theme is Shapes. Go ahead and join in if you want, the flickr group link is here.

Warm Wishes!

A day in the life of a Minnesotan

I woke up this morning at my usual time. Well later than I had planned to get out of bed (like usual). I did my normal morning routine. It takes me 25 minutes to get to work, so I try and leave the house by 7:30. I had my lunch fixed for the day and was starting on getting my breakfast made, when I get a text from Kyle at 7:23am that states "i would recommend snow boats. it is deep" and of course I know he meant to type boots not boats. I have had yet to actually WEAR boots to work, I know a lot of downtown workers do this because they are walking in slush around downtown... but since I work in the 'burbs I have clean shoveled paths from my car to the clinic doors. So I knew it must be bad out there when Kyle suggested boots. I got my boots on and headed out the door with trip one to the car: lunch, purse, work shoes, morning tea and keys to warm up the jeep.


Boy was it deep! At that instant I knew I was going to be late for work. I went back to the house, let Harpo out and made my cereal 'to go' and just ate it in the car. It ended up taking me an hour to get to work.

.....now fast forward nine hours....


I knew as soon as I got home I was going to need to shovel, the snow had been coming down all day and was going to continue to come down all night. If I would have realized it was going to snow so much overnight I would have gotten up early to shovel before work in an effort to make the after work shovel easier. That wasn't the case as you heard from my earlier story. So I started with the back deck. I shovel the deck to the yard as a path for Harpo. I also moved the patio table next to the door at the beginning of winter in hopes to provide Harpo a little shelter area if needed. I shoveled the deck and stopped out Harpo's ring path a little bit. Then it was on to the front.


We don't have THAT great of an area to shovel, just our front side walk, to the street and then in front of the house to our neighbors property, as well as the sidewalk to our garage in the alley. Although I usually shovel all the way to my north neighbors walk way, and she (well the other neighbor she hired) does the same for us). I could tell earlier today he had used the snow blower and went all the way to our walk way so I returned the favor since it was a measly 2 inches (compared to the 4-6" on the rest of the sidewalk)


After I finished that I tacked the back sidewalk... leaving the alleyway drive way (which isn't very big) for later. I don't mind shoveling everything else but I HATE shoveling our little 4' driveway. I'll just let the car tires smash it down... or Kyle can do it tomorrow night.


Now I'm going to go eat dinner, knit on the couch and wait for my honey to get home from school :-P

Warm Wishes!

Week 25

#169: Root Beer Floats: We bought some soda for our guests that came over Saturday night, we never buy soda. I'm really not a big soda drinker. I only drink Dr. Pepper (at the movies) and Root Beer. This night we made root beer floats, mmm they were good!


#170: Niece Knitting: I've been knitting away lately. I made a few hats for my nieces and I plan to make a hat for my first nephew that will arrive in June!!!


#171: Falling Sun: I was driving home, well heading to a yarn shop on the way home, and saw the sun quickly falling. I rushed around trying to find a good  place to stop and capture a photo but by the time I did the sun had already fallen past where I was wanting it at. Oh well. This shot was at a golf course, see the cross country tracks? :-)


#172: Ready for bed Harpo: I was laying in bed about 10:00 or so and realized I hadn't taken a picture!!!!!!  So I grabbed my camera phone and shot a few of Harpo... there was no way I was getting out of my warm bed to go take pictures :-)  And yes my dog sometimes sleeps under the covers with us, he's part human.


#173: Nighttime snow tree: This was another end of the day, heading to bed shot. It was snowing outside so I set up my tripod by the window and got some shots of the snow covered trees. The shutter speed on this one was 30 seconds.


#174: Winter Lamp Post: I was going to go for another photo walk, but didn't think to stick my boots in, so I ended up just driving around this park. 


#175: Harpo Sleeping: he's such a cute sleeper




Warm Wishes!

Photo Drive

It's been snowing here lately, night and day. Oh how I love snow!!

The other day my mom sent me this funny email, it was a journal of a man that loved snow... it quickly changed as he experienced more and more snow, his lovely, carefree passion for it quickly faded into a strong hatred.  Me on the other hand, I really like it. It's our third winter here and I still love snow!



I went on a photo 'drive' on my way home from work. I was going to walk around until I realized I didn't put any boots in my car and the snow would be up to my knees in some places. So I just grabbed my 'car lens' (aka: long focal length lens) and drove to a nearby park. Well it's a golf course actually. It was so pretty and white covered! So peaceful and serine. It's like winter just brings this calming effect over all those it encounters....



And then I came home and shoveled. :-P

Warm Wishes!

Chasing the sun

On my way home from work yesterday, I was headed to a yarn store. I've been knitting like a mad fool lately. Well I have projects I want to get done... lots of babies that will be arriving this spring/summer!!!


So I had my camera in tow, hoping something would catch my eye to get a picture for the day. The sun looked amazing.... I was driving down the highway. When I am looking for a spot to stop and take some photos, nothing every comes up. It's like "a watched pot never boils" kind of karma. So I continued on toward the yarn shop, searching for a place to stop with a good view of the setting sun and passed by a golf course.


PERFECT... flat, snow covered area! but the sun was falling FAST


and I was unable to get the image I was hoping for :-(

Is chasing the sun like trying to catch a falling star?

Warm Wishes!