Just remembering the good old Note Card Days when I used to play with my photos. Thanks to Debby for teaching me the last technique. I saw a photo she had done that was truly inspired and wondered how she'd achieved it. You can find it *here* on this week's Hodge Podge post.
I have so much to chat with you about, but I can't for legal reasons. Oh well...some fine day when it's all over... If it is ever all over.
Have a delightful day today. Mine is supposed to hit 90°F. I hate to complain, but it's a good thing that this is being written early or you'd probably hear moaning. ☺

Ahhhh Monday...a week spreads before me; How shall I fill it? 
First I should say that we did get our celebrations in even if they were slightly delayed. We went to a state park on the coast where we couldn't see the water for the trees. (It's an ongoing complaint of mine. ☺)

I suppose that we could have stayed at home to play on a rain-soaked lawn, but everyone had a good time and sometimes going elsewhere is the thing. That field was so waterlogged that every step was squishy and Jake in red up there took repeated baths in puddles. In the end, the players gave up and took off their shoes and socks. 
~*~*~*~
~ghostly perhaps ghastly~
This is an anniversary week so John and I have more celebratory plans. Yes, that is our one and only wedding photo. Thank you for your sympathies.☺ 
I am hoping that we can do better for Donna's photo challenge (see sidebar). The years have not been kind. We are older, plumper, grayer, and more wrinkled. We are dragging a bit. Have been reading a lot about how to take a proper and flattering photo. (Those articles are gathered and posted by Donna and you can find them by clicking the button.) Last night, I saw a commercial that said something like "you're the only one who can take a good photo of yourself" and I thought true... No one has taken a good photo of me yet. LOL!
So that's all I have for today. Will catch up with you after my chores are done. 

  Here's another thing I might typically do: take a picture of the grand, fresh in from sledding, and leave him out of it. Ai yi yi!
A happy day to you...  

I love the wispy quality of mallow. Apparently, the beetles think it's marshmallow, the way they chow down on it.

Wanted also to share the size of the spider lily for Diane to see... John had to help me out. I don't have enough hands!


Hmmm, apparently, the beetles like it, too!

Short posts this week! Lots going on! I'll report sometime in the future! Have a great day...

Note: If anyone is curious and would like to return to my *photo challenge post,* Donna very kindly fixed the final photo. It was so horrible that she had to turn it into a black and white, but I think you will appreciate the details she was able to add back to the photo and the commentary that she provided. I found it absolutely fascinating! (As the wife of professional photographer, Donna has learned a great deal about photography. I have so enjoyed learning from her.)

One of my readers said that she'd never heard of this kind of Drive By Shooting. They are the most pleasant kind. 

I first became aware of them six years ago at Melissa's Inspired Room. I think that the decorating blogs are more inclined to do them. I've done them from time to time, though I'm not so good at it. I may show you houses or fields or my husband's profile. I may take my own photo in the mirror and I may miss the house entirely and get only the barn or vice versa. 

Let's start at the reason for the drive...the photo challenge and the lake. 
















A country cemetery, no outer gate or sign so it may be privately owned...

Right. Nothing could be further from the truth. Black and white photography is complicated.

I began this process by wondering about whether to take a color photograph and make it black and white with photo editing or to use a black and white photograph from the git-go. I did both. Let's compare, shall we?

I borrowed an idea of my own that some may remember from the earlier days of this blog — stacked stove grates. Exciting, right?

~1~

~2~

~3~

~4~

~5~

~6~

~Give me a little color please~

Now this is just the sort of photo I wouldn't want to see pinned. After seeing someone or other do this, I decided to try it, too. Each toenail is painted a different color for a total of five different polishes. I really like it, yet would never do it on my fingernails (I never paint my fingernails anyway). So that's all the excitement of this day. Period. The end. Yup, it's come to this—watching polish dry.

Okay, perhaps I can do better...

My son and his boys were here building a snow fort during the last storm. When I tried to take a photo of it the next day in the brilliant sunshine, it simply wouldn't show up. Since a lot of you have snow these days, I thought I'd remind you of the snow setting and that it works indoors as well. The photo of the daffodils yesterday was also taken using the snow setting.

Thank you for all your comments concerning photography. They were most helpful. I had a good session of reading and practicing and where has that Exposure Compensation been hiding? Oh that was a good button to find.

Seems as if I always practice on Fioré when she'll allow it. Lying in her patch of found sun is usually when she's the most cooperative.


This was the best of the lot and then I cranked on it a bit further brightening the ear and the nose in Photoscape with "effects."

It's always fun to play. Have a wonderful weekend no matter what the weather brings.

Will you play with photography today? Doing anything fun?

That's me. I'm so proud.

Really, though, you people are driving me batty! You have so many things to share and so much to teach me and some days it's all I can do to get the laundry done.

For example, this morning I read my comments from yesterday's post and Veronica mentioned something about "silver birch" and I thought to myself: how romantical...I would certainly prefer to call the white birch chunk a silver birch chunk. Would you believe this led me on a search lasting over an hour? And just when I thought I had it all resolved, John came along and said, "I love working with yellow birch." Yellow birch?! Don't get me started! <  *thud*  >

Then, Lorrie, who is my twin in cameradom ever since she bought a new camera and started taking even more amazing photos than ever before and I copied her (That's right. I asked her what kind of camera she had and, when my Canon was in the shop being repaired for a month, I bought a camera like Lorrie's), shared her secret. [That sentence is a hot mess.]

This is really quite clever by half, if I do say so myself, because when I see an exceptionally beautiful photo (Who am I kidding? All of Lorrie's photos are exceptionally beautiful) I can ask her what was going on there.

*This* is what was going on there:


Ah ha! Bracketing! I knew it all along. (No, I confess I had forgotten, but I had tried it *here.*)

This was my subject corner more or less...


and these are the three consecutive pictures...



















Which one would you choose as the best one?


Yes, in answer to your question...we are getting ready for the third weekend storm. The town was by to make room for more snow just this morning.