30 August, 2010

We have several blooms now, several of which won't produce seeds. However, a few of the others ought to give us something to feed the squirrels with.

29 August, 2010

My silly dog decided to play pirate for a bit. It was cute and I needed a photo. So she again gets to star on my blog.

28 August, 2010

All that I can recall of Saturday was it being a highly uneventful day. And thus, I photographed the tasty Wendy's frosty that my mom and sister brought home after running some errands.

27 August, 2010

Grocery shopping. The only perks are the tasty foods you pick up during the process... Like ice cream.

26 August, 2010

Relatively boring day. Cleaned my car, practiced contact juggling, cleaned the kitchen, etc. 'Twas one of those days that seemed to move extremely slow. And thus, you get a photo of my lovely navy watch.

25 August, 2010

Boom and I cracked open her new backgammon game and played a few rounds this afternoon.

24 August, 2010 - Boom's Birthday

Boom started her birthday off by having me take a picture of her with my dog (she wanted photos with each of the dogs, but somehow, only managed to get pics with Wisdom). On our way to pick up her cake, we dropped by Sonic for lunch and then dropped the cake at my grandparents' (only I went in, since my grandma was wrapping presents). We spent the rest of our afternoon at home whilst we waited for my dad to get home from work and my grandparents to give us our customary "we're ready" phone call. Our dinner at Olive Garden wasn't nearly as satisfactory as we were hoping (The entire time, our family was being harassed by flies - one even landed in my drink! Not a lot of fun), but our time at our grandparents afterward made up for that nasty experience.

The lovely birthday girl and my dog.

Some adorable lights that my grandma has hanging in one of her doorways.

Watson, the sweetest cat in the world (in my opinion).

23 August, 2010

Yet another weekly sunflower update. As you can see, we have several blooms now. They are small, but will likely give us a few seeds. One of the heads is a bit deformed, since ants have mercilessly chewed on it.

I went outside and snapped these photos at just the right time, as some very heavy rain rolled in about ten minutes after I came back inside (and is still going, about an hour later!).



Another photography experiment. I figure I might as well play with different angles while I still have the sunflowers. This head is the same one I photographed last week.

22 August, 2010

A day of yard work. My mom and I cultivated, fertilized and mulched our sunflowers. While she watered the rest of the plants, I trimmed our hyssop (which had a plethora of dead seed pods). We also trimmed dead heads off of our coneflower (which is looking really unhealthy - we think this might be its last year) and dumped out pots with dead plants (including my celosia, which took several beatings from the hefty rain storms of a few weeks ago).

An experimental shot of one of the sunflower heads. I think this photo turned out well.

Our half-trimmed hyssop. I paused when I finished trimming the right side so that I could take a comparison photo. When the trimming was completed, the plant looked much healthier.

Boom! My mom gave her an early birthday present: her very own contact juggling ball. She immediately took it outside and played with it a bit. I took several photos of it before it becomes scratched and cracked, as acrylics are sure to do.

21 August, 2010

You know you're desperate for a daily photo when...

You are reduced to photographing your meals.

20 August, 2010

We went back to the park we visited last Tuesday; this time to get pictures of my younger sisters. Last week, they requested that we set aside a day this week to take some photos of them. So we set off this afternoon, the two of them dressed up quite nicely and my mom and I armed with cameras (and a rubber duck).

An hour and a half after we arrived, we called it a wrap and headed for home. It was a fun, if tiring, way to spend our afternoon.


This was one of many dogs that we spotted playing in the water. He seemed to love his big stick.

19 August, 2010

The majority of my morning was actually spent putting virus protection on my computer and downloading updates for it, if you can believe it. After that, I kind of just hung around, listened to music and played Zoo Tycoon on the desktop. I know. Not very productive at all.

In a desperate attempt to get a picture for the day, I sneaked outside with Kristin's dog, Joy-Ful. She learned "shake" last November. She's always had very active paws, so I randomly decided to put her pawing on cue one evening. With plenty of praise, she learned fast.

18 August, 2010

I did a massive amount of dusting today (in my bedroom - it was long overdue). In the process, I put a fresh round of Breyers up.

These models are a fine example of the Othello mold. The horse on the left is called Fox Valley Oliver and he is a "portrait model" (a representation of real horse) and the equine on the right is Summer, a horse from this year's Breyer Treasure Hunt (the goal of the Treasure Hunt being to obtain Spring, Summer and Fall, send in the UPCs and receive the Winter model). I received the first for my birthday two years ago and the second just last month.


On my birthday, I put up Summer's fellow, Fall. I don't own Spring just yet, but do aim to possess him before the year's end.
Fall:

This beauty is "Platinum", a special edition model whom we procured last fall. She hasn't been displayed until now.

17 August, 2010

We enjoyed our daily Sonic visit more than usual (they were recording some sort of video for the company, so we got to watch our favorite carhop skate around with a camera following him). Afterward, we went to OfficeMax and picked up some virus protection and additional school supplies (some of which we didn't need, but who passes up five cent notebooks?)

I actually found this design on the cover of a notebook and thought it was neat. So I photographed it.

16 August, 2010

The Fibonacci Sequence in action:

15 August, 2010

I spotted this awesome dragon in the aquarium section of PetSmart. He was a little over one foot long and rather neat, in my opinion.


After our PetSmart run, my mom and I dropped by Starbucks and spent a few minutes just relaxing and chatting. This was our first visit to Starbucks in over a year (I know, amazing to some of you coffee addicts). We're not big coffee drinkers, though, so we only go for their tea, lemonade and "Marshmallow Dream" bars.

14 August, 2010

Quite frankly, I'm exhausted. So forgive me if this post is short, incomprehensible, or anything else that might be undesirable.

We moved our grandparents' old couch (and chair, which we weren't planning on) from their house to ours today. The whole event was a bunch of miscommunication and complication and frustration. However, I did manage to train my dog a bit today (hence the photo). So that's at least a good thing.


(Don't you love my homemade jumps?)

13 August, 2010

Our salmon pink hyssop. It was shopping day and I hadn't taken a picture. This was the most creative daily shot I could come up with.

12 August, 2010

Because I'd managed to contract a whole bunch of viruses on Monday, I arranged to meet with LH's parents at Panera to get some virus removal help. Before we left, I wandered outside to look at all of the toadstools that have taken up residence in our front yard. We've had plenty in the past, but never this big and never this plentiful.

A group of CleanPlace Mooters surprised us by joining our little group at Panera, where we hung out for a while before going to a mentor's house. We chatted out in the parking lot for a good hour and a half before departing.

11 August, 2010

'Twas a rather slow day (and hot). My mom, sisters and I all spent some time shooting after I set my archery target up. None of us actually did very well, making it very obvious that we haven't been to the range in forever and that we were shooting on an unfamiliar bow.

10 August, 2010

It was a rather busy Tuesday, filled with more activity than we're used to. We dropped by our local polling place so that my mom and I could vote.



We then took our trip to Sonic (we actually got there too early for Happy Hour this week, but that's okay). My mom didn't feel like heading home so early on such a nice day, so we took a random trip to a local park...



...where we spotted some adorable chipmunks! They were very friendly (I suspect that other parkgoers feed the little rodents) and remarkably easy to photograph. They let me get pretty close to them and so, with a bit of zooming, I got some good shots!

9 August, 2010

The sunflowers already have heads on them, which is no good. With such small stalks, they won't have very large heads, unfortunately. We have our theories as to why they aren't doing as well this year as they have in the past, but we don't know for sure why they're so small. However, it has been great fun to grow them and we will hopefully have more luck next year.



I actually have no idea what type of caterpillar this little guy is. I do know that he was cute and fuzzy and very likely to fry on our porch if I hadn't moved him to our coneflowers.

8 August, 2010

About a week ago, LH asked me to make her a new signature banner and avatar set for her CleanPlace account (this request actually came about because I was harassing her about the last set that I made her as an April Fool's joke and how she is still using it). I attempted a banner last Monday, but just couldn't convince it to work. I've been thinking about it for a week, trying to decide what to make her (she didn't make a specific request, so I had some freedom), but just couldn't come up with anything. Today, inspiration hit me. So, after doing daily tasks, training my dog and cleaning the kitchen, I set up a studio and did a photo shoot.

This was the best result:


I loaded the pictures on my computer and set about creating a signature banner. After much fiddling, I obtained my goal. This particular text version turned out to be my favorite (though I've left it to LH to decide which she wants to use):

Nota Bene: Blogger cuts off a portion of the banner's right side, so you'll need to actually click the image if you want to see the whole thing.

(For those that don't understand: This is a Doctor Who joke. You'd have to see a specific scene to "get it".)

7 August, 2010

We spent a good five hours out and about running errands yesterday. One of our stops was to Barnes and Noble, where I found this awesome leather notebook. I took this shot with my sepia setting, so the colors aren't accurate (the owl was bronze and the notebook brown), but I didn't want to fight with the conflicting lighting in the store (daylight and florescent - makes for a tough combination), so I took the easy way out.

6 August, 2010

Boom, my dog and I spent some time in the backyard this afternoon. We've been out of the house and away from the dogs for the majority of the week, so I thought my pup could use some quality bonding time. She loves training; because it requires her to use her brain, I think. We started the session off with some basic tricks(with me, sit, flat, bow, etc) and then moved on to continuing her "step up" training and started her on jumping obstacles on command. By the time we were finished, she was confidently jumping a pole (with me at her side, of course) and understood the "step up" command. If we have the time tomorrow, we'll continue the jumping training.

Wisdom demonstrating her "step up" trick:

5 August, 2010 (Pre-Moot)

The annual gathering of my writing group, CleanPlace, is set to begin on Saturday, the seventh of August. As many of our writers have already arrived, we've had a couple of pre-Moots. I won't be attending the Moot this year (don't have the funds), but I was able to make it to yesterday's pre-Moot. I had a good time hanging out with LH and the other CPeeps. Got to talk to many out-of-state CPers (and several from other parts of Colorado). And got to play Skee Ball at an arcade.


Yuki and LH were kind enough to pose by this awesome statue as we were headed to the arcade.

Joygirl, Dolphin, Yuki and Raine paused in their enjoyment of the arcade so that I could get a shot of them.

I didn't actually take this photo (my youngest sister did), but it was taken with my camera, so I decided to put it here on my blog. This is me, Curritigris and LH at the end of the day.

This is my photography, I'm ashamed to say. The backlighting didn't look bad on my camera screen, but it turned out terribly once I loaded it on my computer. This is Telpenen and LH standing in front of the torrential downpour (rain and hail) that struck just as we were all about to leave. The rain was so bad that the gutters on the pavilion we were standing in couldn't actually hold all of the water, and thus, it flowed into the pavilion and flooded the floor. Very wet.

All in all, it was a lovely day!


**Note to CPers: If you see any photos here that you would like to have in a larger size (or without the borders), let me know. I have the originals still and would be glad to e-mail them to you.**

4 August, 2010

My day started off with a car alarm. Not my car alarm. This alarm belonged to a construction worker who decided to park in front of our house. The alarm went off for over an hour. It was not a particularly pleasant way to begin one's day.

We dropped by the Farmer's Market again, but found nothing to our liking, so we took a trip to Taco Bell to get a light lunch and then headed back home. A shop near our place is looking for a part-time employee, so I dropped by with the intention of picking up an application. I wound up filling out the application there and talking to the owner for about twenty minutes. It's a twelve hour position (with the potential for more hours, since I'd be their back-up person), but it's a start. If my readers would be so kind as to pray that God exercise his will on this one, I would most appreciate it.

After that, we pretty much just hung out all afternoon. I practiced the Psaltery for a bit (without the little inserts telling me which note was which) while CoolBreeze cleaned some more of the carpets (I think she's obsessed). Pretty lazy day.

3 August, 2010

Another rather ordinary day. We had another torrential rainfall this afternoon, so our backyard is quite wet and muddy. I quite enjoyed running in the rain yesterday afternoon, so I decided to engage in said activity again today. (No, I'm not seven. Why do you ask?) My youngest sister joined me (She's not seven either, ya know.) and we engaged in mud art. I carved my screen name into the ground (with a stick).



Yes, that is an arrow going through the name. Pardon the over-sized fletching and crooked shaft. Mud art isn't particularly easy. *whistles*

2 August, 2010

My weekly sunflower photo:



An abundance of wind and rain has actually curled their leaves up (from the west to the east), so they are currently bending toward the road.

I took this shot from the far east side of our yard so that I could capture the back rows of the garden. It's kind of hard to tell, but this picture shows that our back sunflowers are much shorter than the front ones. The only possible reason for this is that the front flowers receive more water than the rest.

1 August, 2010

I did absolutely nothing noteworthy, so I decided to take a picture of a grasshopper! We've had an abundance of these little guys this year (though we've mostly had the tiniest, most adorable yellow ones). However, the small ones are extremely twitchy and were strangely absent when I went out with my camera (the birds have been engaging in feeding frenzies in our yard and I can't help but to wonder if that explains the declining grasshopper population).

This guy kept doing a funny shuffling routine around the stem of this coneflower in an attempt to escape my camera. I guess he didn't want his picture taken, but wanted to leave his comfortable perch even less!