Tree in snow

We've had some beautiful snow today that unfortunately is turning into sleet and freezing rain.  Before we lost all the beauty, however, I found this tree starkly set against a field of snow.  After taking the original shot (that turned out to be black and white since there were no other colors present), I took a little artistic liberty and tried a few other effects with this simple subject.

Back to the hills

We traveled back to Blowing Rock today after having not been here in about a month.  The first shot is the state of our construction at this point.  A lot has changed since the photo of George standing on the tree stump!  Building foundations in the mountains is a lot more complex than in Charlotte.  I was glad to see the guys still hard at work.  The second photo is one I'll add to a file I'm building on nice skies.  Also, the sun setting over the mountains (and it's 35 degrees) is in stark contrast to the photo I posted one week ago with the sun setting over the Caribbean (it was about 85 degrees).  The difference a week makes!  Tomorrow I might even get some snow shots.

Basket o' kitty fun

We have a toy basket for our cats (yes I know how pathetic that sounds!) and they pull toys out and we occasionally round them up and put them back in.  Hobbes, in particular, would rather pull out a new one than play with one he already has out.  They are colorful little treasures for him.

Fan speed

Today marks the first day of the last month of my daily blog.  I must admit that I am surprised to still be posting at this point, especially without missing a day.  But I'm happy to be here.  It's nice to be able to see the end and at the same time it's been a good journey.  I wish I had been inspired today to do something great, but instead I spent most of the day organizing my photos.  I was down to 8 GB of memory on my laptop and knew I needed to organize, back up and purge, so that's taken my energy today, especially when late this afternoon I realized that I had maxed out my 500 GB backup drive, so now I have to organize and purge that one to make enough room to finish organizing my laptop.  It may be easier to just buy some more backup memory tomorrow.  We'll see.  It really has gotten out of hand.  Shooting in RAW is wonderful, but it definitely eats up the memory.  Anyway, I decided to play around with shutter speed today.  Not something I do a lot, but it was an easy assignment.  This is a little fan I have on my desk and I've always liked the retro look and the fact that it puts out a nice breeze for such a little gizmo.  These images are taken from 1/50 sec. to 1/400 sec. (the limit of the available light even at ISO 1600).

Cooking with Nancy

Today Nancy and I cooked some Christmas Breakfast Casseroles for her church's bazaar this weekend.  We had a fun afternoon and Nancy looked great standing by the stove.

Hobbes and the toaster

I have no energy for photography today.  I have the post-vacation, it's Monday and it's cold doldrums, so I turned to one of my sweet subjects, Hobbes, for a quick shot.  For some strange reason he has been up on the counter snuggling to the toaster most of the afternoon.  He can be a strange little kitty sometimes.

All good things must come to an end....

After an exhausting, frustrating travel day yesterday (finally getting home 4 hours late last night), I almost forgot about posting today.  We spent the day not doing much, but we needed to unpack and do laundry to put up our summer clothes for the season for good.  It always makes me sad to put away my summer clothes.  Warm weather always makes me think of simple, fun times.  Winter clothes seem so serious by comparison.  One of my favorite summer things is this thin cotton caftan that I wear as a bathing suit coverup when we're in the islands.  It's the perfect thing to throw over my bathing suit to have a lunch by the sea.  After washing it today I noticed how nice it looked hanging up and sensed my reluctance to part with it for the year.