Photos January 10-19, 2009

I fell behind on posting, but continued to take photos. This is a long post as it has 10 photos.

We went to Charleston, SC to visit hubby's sister while their parets were visiting. This was in lieu of our holiday visit. We did a little tourist stuff while there. This photo is from the Charleston Tea Plantation, the only tea plantation in the US. The "factory tour" was very interesting. We all learned something new about how tea is processed in the US.

This next photo was taken in downtown Charleston. This is the top corner of the visitor's parking lot where we parked. It's amazing what Mother Nature can do.

This photo is my hubby working on a commissioned piece. He is knitting a baby hat in UGA colors for a co-worker. When done, there will also be a blanket.

This photo is of another of our furr-family. This is MataHari. He is going to be ten years old this year. Some of you history buffs may be wondering why we named a male cat after a female spy. He is not named for the spy MataHari. In Indonesian, Mata Hari means Sun (literally "eye of the day"). MataHari is our golden boy and sun worshiper. His furr is gold and ivory and his eyes are gold. He finds the first sunbeam in the morning and the last at night. Whenever he cannot be found, we look for sunbeams.

A lot of folks doing project 365 are taking photos of everyday life. I am trying to do a little of that. This is the side table on my side of the couch. The first thing to note is that scrapbooking organizating tools can also work for non-scrapping. There are craft tools and items in these, but not much for traditional scrapping. My hubby and I often sit side by side working on our laptops.

As I got ready for bed, the boys nearly knocked me over rushing to the window. They jumped up on this cat jungle jim and began to stare out in to the dark. I couldn't tell what they were looking for, but knew I needed to grab my camera.

This photo is an attempt to show a little color in my office. My office is full of paperwork, file cabinets and binders. The vase on the right is covered with polymer clay (by me). The one in the middle is a promo from a vendor (I love the splash of color!). The bottle on the left looks fantastic with light shinig through it. Unfortunately the version of this taken in daylight didn't work because of the light shining through the window.

This was extracted from a photo taken of MataHari snuggling against hubby's legs on the LazyBoy loveseat. When there isn't a sunbeam to be found, snuggling with Daddy is a good source of warmth. I extracted part of the photo, because I wanted to rotate it slightly.

This is another member of our furr-family. This is Dewi. Dewi means Goddess. Dewi thinks she is Kali. Kali is usually depicted with multiple arms all holding knives. Dewi can be a little on the wild side, often viscious, though rarely with us. She is not fond of strangers and can shred the vet staff. Dewi is mellowing with age; she is 12 1/2 years old.

This is my hubby of 11 1/2 years. He is not only the love of my life; he is my best friend. He had an interview today and I asked if I could take a photo while he was dressed. In the first photo taken, he pulled a face. Then he started laghing at the TV behind me. That's when I got this shot. This is the face I love.

Until next time.....

January 9, 2009

Here is another photo of a random part of my life. I have a tendancy to seek out order in my life where I can. There is so much I cannot control that it is nice to control a few things. This is my spice rack. My husband put up the shelves to my specifications and lovingly puts the spices back on the shelves alphabetically to please me. I see in the photo that there are a few items on the bottom shelf that need to be put back where they belong. Having my herbs and spices alphabetized makes it easy find them and easy to tell that I do not have something. My hubby likes to make new things and instead of having to ask if we have something, he can easily find out.

Until next time.....

January 8, 2009

Yeah, I know it's actually the 9th. I took this photo yesterday but got home incredibly late and didn't get it resized to upload. I have been spending very late hours at work, so I thought I should show some images of work. This one is much better than the rodent trap. I decorate my ofice door for the seasons. Later this month is Chinese or Lunar New Year. Two thirds of our lab group will celebratethe Lunar New Year. I found these hanging strands of dragons and coins. On the door they are haning free so they move with the door movement and also when someone comes rushing in or out of my office. This happens a lot.
Thank you for the nice comments and emails about my dad. I think he is one of the cutest people in the world, but then I am Daddy's little girl. My Dad has done a lot of international travelling in his career. Whenever he was travelling in November and December, the Embassies would ask him to play Santa Claus or Saint Nicholas. The Foreign communities in most of the places he travelled were close regardless of nationality, so most of the time it was not the American Embassy asking. The most common Embassy to request this would be the Canadian Embassy.

Until next time.....

January 7, 2009

Ok so I took these shots on Christmas night, but I really wanted to post them. After dinner on Christmas night, the family sat down to play dominoes. My dad's uncle arrived with more presents. This is Dad holding up his present from Uncle William. I just love the expression in the shot on the lower left. Dad wouldn't let me get a photo of the trap door.
I love you Dad!

Until next time.....

January 6, 2009

Ok so I didn't have time to post last night. I left work very late. I did however take a photo yesterday to be posted. We had a bit of excitement at work. I work with a research laboraory at Emory University. One of our lab members saw a mouse in the lab. We work with mice but this was not a lab mouse. It was what we would call a wild type or wild mouse. There is construction going on next door and the exterminator says that the rodents are being chased inside. This wasn't the first time the evidence of rodents appeared. Over the New Year's Holiday the Orkin man put down traps. Yesterday the two sticky traps were missing. To make sure that the traps do not get dragged away again, the Orkin man put down these:
This sticky trap is about 12 inches by 15 inches. They are the rat equivalent. As of today we did not have anyone in the trap.

Until next time.....

January 5, 2009

Day 5, Photo 8 WooHoo! Keepin' up so far! This is Pala; she is 4 and a half. Pala means nutmeg in Bahasa Indonesia. I spent 6 years in Indonesia as a child so all of our cats have Indonesian names. Pala is a black calico and is very cuddly. Pala doesn't like having her photo taken and makes ugly faces to the camera. The best photos I have of her are either asleep or a surprize. It's hard to get good ambush shots with a digital camera.

Until next time......

January 4, 2009

This is the baby of our family. Bajing, aka Hammie, is three years old. He acts like a three year old boy insteadof a three year old cat. He races around the house, dive bombs his siblings and races to the top of bookshelves. This is a rare calm moment.
He is sleeping on the top of a cat tree built by my hubbie. It's made of a carpet tube and is five feet high. There is a platform inside and another next to the hole so the cats can climb inside. I have some photos from when it was built. I need to fid them on my EHD.

Until next time......

January 3, 2009

Posting a bit late because we got involved with something. This photo was taken earlier tonight as we came out of Michael's Arts and Crafts. It was foggy and beautiful.
I realized that I had been posting a lot of dark photos, so I though I would add in a colorful one. This is the display of silk flowers at Michael's.

Until next time.....

I've decided how to keep my photos

In addition to my blog, I wanted something a little more permanent for my photos. I often bind my own journals or memory books. I found a calendar template that will allow me to comment on each day's photos. The following will be printed on semi-gloss leaflet stock, cut in half and bound using my bind-it-all. Now I just have to see how many pages I use to decide whether to bind quarterly, semi-annual or all at once. I'm pretty sure that all at once will be too many pages. The next weeks will have the entire week's journaling together and may need more than once page to showcase the photos best. I also need to decide whether I will embellish before or after printing. My current templates are in MS Word so that the journaling will be easier as this is the most important part for me. In order to upload the version below, I created a pdf then saved the pdf as a jpg. This is not the most elegant way to do it, just fast.

Until next time....

January 2, 2009

I took this photo on Christmas night, but I really like it. My parent's dining room furniture is made of wormy chestnut. This is seen in the table under the wine glass.

In the background, you can see the log walls of my parents' house. They have a Lincoln Log Home in the North Carolina mountains. This is a photo my mom took of the house last spring.

Until next time...

January 1, 2009

Photo 1, Photo 2, Photo 3
Happy New Year!

As mentioned in my first post, I am going to attempt project 365. That is a photo a day or seven photos a week. Today's photos are from our dinner last night. We were very cautious with money for the past six weeks because my husband was laid off. We decided we needed to splurge a little for New Year's Eve. We went to the Melting Pot in Duluth, GA. It's a fondue restaurant.
Here is the entree pot steaming away:
Here is dinner waiting to go in the pot:

Here is desert waiting to be dipped in flaming turtle fondue:

Until next time.....

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog. I plan to join Project 365 and attempt to post a photo a day or seven photos a week. I received a new camera for Christmas and hope that this will help me to learn to use my camera.

Now I need to go edit the first photos to be posted......