Day 278- Away

We are away at the coast for a long weekend!  My hard-working husband needs a break, and I need a change of scene.  Blog readers- there will be something different for you to look at beyond the four walls of my house!

We arrived an hour ago, and I am checking BLOG off my to-do list while Lonnie is at the grocery store.  We have no plans other than walking, reading, sleeping, and eating. And I will be taking photos.

We had awe-inspiring views as we drove up Hwy 1, but we wanted to get here and THEN do the photo thing. So, I have no ocean photos for today.

The road into our vacation rental:

 

The view from the house:

Where I will be sitting in a few minutes:

All of the photos were taken with my 18-200mm and have textures added in Photoshop.  The last one also has some de-saturation and split-toning (those chairs are pretty bright in real life!).

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Day 277- Minimally Autumn

Although the weather is warm, the leaves are starting to litter our deck.  The leaves on the glass table seem like a good response to today’s theme for Our Daily Challenge, minimalism. I used my 50mm1.4 (at 1.8 and 2.0) for a shallow depth of field- and did a bit of split toning on the first image.  The last photo is my favorite- I think it looks like the leaves are floating in water- and is probably the most minimalist.

 

 

 

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Day 276- Beginning

I love beginning a new book- especially one by an author that is new to me.  This month my book club is reading The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach.  I admit to a few misgivings about this one, because it’s about baseball.  I like going to baseball games and watching baseball movies, but I’m not so sure about reading a baseball story.  I’ve heard this one is excellent- I’ll be starting it later today.  Watch for my review on Goodreads! 🙂

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Day 275- October!

I love October and have been looking for signs of Fall.  I found these little things on a walk recently and am not sure what they are. Acorn caps? Shells from nuts?  Anyone know what they are?

I took this with my macro lens- and added a bit of a texture in processing.

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Day 274- Gnarly, dude!

Because the topic was gnarly, I ventured out back this morning, knowing there were all sorts of gnarly things out there.  To be clear, I was thinking of gnarly as in gnarled or nasty  or hairy- not in the sense of extreme coolness.  When I came upon this spider busily completing her web, I couldn’t resist going back inside for my macro lens.  I think she is extremely cool, but kind of nasty and hairy as well.

 

 

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Day 273- Dessert

Today’s theme is dessert. I don’t have anything except chocolate covered almonds left over from a get-together the other night- so they will have to do. They are dark chocolate, which is actually a health food.  So… life is short, eat dessert first!

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Day 271- In the Kitchen

I love my new Fiesta dishes!  Years ago when I first started collecting Blue Ridge Pottery, I fell in love with the Fiesta pitcher (but, out of loyalty to Blue Ridge, never bought one).  A week or so ago, my husband surprised me with a red Fiesta pitcher to go with our new dishes.  I have a feeling this is only the beginning. . .

In the kitchen is one of the themes this week for Our Daily Challenge on Flickr. My new Fiesta pitcher- and salt and pepper shakers- are in the background.

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Day 270- Old-Fashioned

There were so many choices for me to photograph in response to today’s prompt- old-fashioned. I do have a lot of old stuff!  But since I have flowers, I couldn’t waste the opportunity to photograph them.

So- flowers in an old-fashioned Mason jar on top of an old-fashioned garden table (that belonged to my parents- maybe my grandparents!):

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Day 269- Parting

My friend, Debbie is leaving today.  The visit has been all too short, but she wants to get home to see her daughter who is flying back to The Hague and to take care of her husband, Dale, who will most likely be starting another round of treatment for lymphoma soon.  But we expect another visit from both of them, because they will soon have a new grand-baby here in town!

 

This photo was layered with Kim Klassen’s texture, partings, for Texture Tuesday.

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Day 267- Debbie’s Here!

My friend, Debbie has come to stay for a few days! She and Dale moved to Arizona four years ago- so it is a HUGE treat to have her here, if only for a few days.  She drove out because she is moving  one of her daughters from Arizona to Sacramento- and she could quite possibly be here for the birth of her second grand-baby, due any day now.  In the meantime, we are having a great time talking and laughing and laughing and talking!  Bittersweet, though, because she is here for such a short time- and I’ll miss her even more when she leaves. Love you, Debbie!

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Day 266- Everyday

Today’s theme is everyday– so here is something I do every day.

At least there are some new dishes in the dishwasher. . .

And here is something that is NOT everyday- but maybe about every week or so- FLOWERS!

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Day 265- w h i t e

One of the themes in my Flickr group is white this week.  Although I gravitate to bright colors, I think there is something special about white.  I gathered a few white objects from the futon room, craft room, junk room (depending on whom you ask. . .) to compose this simple image.

I slightly desaturated the photo and added a layer of Kim’s lightpaper texture at a low opacity.

 

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Day 264- Good Morning!

Good Morning! I couldn’t pass up breakfast as the theme today- the promise of getting breakfast AND my photoshoot accomplished early in the day?- of COURSE!

This is a pretty typical breakfast- toast or cereal, that’s me!  I tend to either read or sit at the computer while I eat.  The table seemed more photoworthy today- that’s the ninth Maisie Dobbs, Elegy for Eddie, sitting by my place.

Please note the new Fiestaware in the photo!  We decided to replace our old, scratched everyday dishes with colorful Fiesta, which I have always loved. There was a great sale at Macy’s, and we bought 4 place settings- and ordered 4 more. The new dishes came right away, but had a chip on one piece, and scratches on one piece out of each of the other 3 boxes. So we have to return them, alas. Just another glitch in a week dominated by another major car repair for the Subaru (long, sad story. . .).

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