31/365 Something Missing

Hmmm wonder what it could be? lol Well our sink broke the other day underneath and rather than replace just the pipes I decided to replace the whole sink because the old one had a lot of little cracks in it. My dad is coming over today to install the new sink and I thought I would help out by getting the old sink out (I like to surprise him - even though he hates when I touch plumbing!) I'm really good at dismantling things but not so good about putting things together!

30/365 The games we play

I am a rehab director in a nursing home and today I was passing the great room to see about 5 residents playing the Wii. I smiled to myself thinking that not 6 months ago none of them knew what to do, and here they were bowling better than me! Then I ran out to my car to get my little point and shoot so I could share this with all of you! Many of the residents get around with assistance like this lady here in her power wheelchair. I love that they have embraced this technology and that at any age we can love to play games!

29/365 Healthy (make your own #2)

Well this isn't really ONE photograph (and I know it's a scrapbook and not a photo) but a collage of sorts from the last 7 months. I've been on weight watchers and I needed to see for myself the changes that I've been going through so I made this scrapbook page. These are photos that I never want to take again so I'm posting them here so I'll remember where I was and that I can achieve a goal and that I am a stronger healthier person for doing so. To date I've lost 33 pounds, my goal is 14 more.

28/365 Navigational Aids

Ok so maybe not the most accurate but how cute was this?? Adam, my 6 year old, drew us a map to get into the city the other night. So now all of you can get to the city from my house! You just pass the church then the field with the stones all in it (later to find out he means cemetary), go through the tunnel, under the brown water and then you are in the city! Easy as that. I kinda cheated as I used this photo for the photo challenge this week in the contests/challenge posts (shhhh..don't tell anyone!)

27/365 Eyes

I love taking pictures of Sean his face is so expressive and he does not pose for the shots. I try and catch him when he isn't looking and it always amazes me the reactions I get. We went for dinner the other night and I just took this while we were waiting for our food...I LOVE his eyes and I LOVE his ears (ok he will hate them when he is older but for now - how cute are they??) Anyway I was just very pleased with the way his eyes just stood out on this shot - so here they are my babies blue eyes.

26/365 Corner

Yep..this is MY corner. After 8 years in this house I finally took a corner of our basement over for myself. I moved a refrigerator out of the way (by myself!) - put together the desk (on my own) and got everything to where I was finally happy! Then a month later we were hit with an unexpected obscene amount of rain and we got about 9 inches of water in our basement and lost a LOT of stuff - most of our furniture, our doors, most of the kids toys and alas my scrapbooking area :( It took us a year to remodel we put in new carpet, walls, french drains, and painting - lots of painting! I even learned how to install floor moldings. The kids, however, are still afraid to keep their toys down here. So here it is my corner just the way I like it. I recently moved my wide format printer within reach to my desk so I can print from my laptop and I am happy again :)

25/365 Advertisement

We went into NYC yesterday to take the boys to see the Lion King. I was prepared to take many great shots of the city, but not prepared for how cold it was!! We were rushing a bit so I didn't get the shots that I wanted, anyway...in looking through my pictures I kept going back to this shot of Times Square. It is amazing how many ads are on buildings, cars, bus stops, everywhere! This is the first year that they are keeping the New Year's eve ball up you can see it just slightly.

24/365 Laundry

Probably my favorite feature in this old house is the laundry chute in the bathroom...it goes right to the basement. Problem is I still have to do the laundry :( I have actually gone down there and have had a pile that almost touched the chute. How is it that the boys generate sooo much laundry? oh well. I used a posterized filter on the aluminum chute only to give it some more depth. Sorry about the focus my head only fit a through the hole a little bit (and I really didn't want the boys to see what I was doing - monkey see monkey do!)

23/365 Sign, Sign, Everwhere a Sign

This sign makes me laugh every time I go into the boys room! Adam drew this to keep the dog out of their room...it's not effective but it is funny! This is Adam he is the more dramatic of the 2 boys. I need to figure out how to make the eyes brighter because both my boys have such beautiful blue eyes!

22/365 Winter

I am getting all these cold shots out of the way so I can come back inside! I was playing around with lighting the ISO settings and I was amazed at the color of the sky that I was able to achieve! I tried to just add a little depth to the shot to darken it up a little I hope I didn't take it to far. I'm still getting used to playing with the levels settings.

21/365 Fences

Ok I caved and went outside to take some shots in the snow (but I wasn't happy about it!) This is the gate that leads to our back yard I really liked the way the snow just piled up on the links on the fence. So that was weird.. I know that the file was attached last night - sorry for all of those of that visited and the photo wasn't here :(

20/365

This post is dedicated to my husband who lost his Nana 10 years ago today. We were married on October 3, 1998 and she was unable to make it to the wedding because she was in the hospital. Right after the wedding ceremony Chris and I went to her hospital room with his dad, brother, aunt, uncle and cousins to take some family pictures. I remember bringing her a scarf to cover the IV in her neck and the nurses all scrambled to put some makeup on her. The clock shown in this photo is the last gift she gave to us for our wedding - how symbolic as our time with her was cut to short. The pictures in my wedding album are the last we have of her. She is missed every day, she was a wonderful woman and we love her very much.

19/365 Green

I am tired of the snow..yep I've officially had Enough! Anyway the kids were not up for any modeling today so I settled in on these great green apples. I learned a lot setting up this shot - for instance glare is a nightmare to get rid of. I was not able to control the lighting coming in from the door on the left which is what was captured on the glass. I was able to practice with some basic adjustment layers so that was cool. Hopefully the weather will turn around this week.

18/365 Orange

This is a shot of an orange balloon against my brown winter coat. I was trying to see if I could capture the lighting on top of the balloon. I had my son hold the stick to the balloon but that was a bad idea I got 10 shots of movement so I held the balloon with one hand and shot with the other. I was going to put some funky filters on this but then it would have fallen into the abstract category.

17/365 Temperature

What else is there to say? This was taken this morning at 9:30am. I did however realize that this camera has such amazing details, that I now need to dust more closely! I shot this hand held while standing on a kitchen chair so I was a little unsteady - next time I need to be less lazy and get the tripod!

16/365 Living the Green Life

So I was driving home the other day and I saw this container at a gas station. I tried to take a picture while I waited at a red light but missed the opportunity so as the cars behind me honked I made a u-turn and went into the gas station, got out of the car and took the shot. Luckily I had remembered the theme for one of the photo challenges was recycling and this is as good a place as any. I found this also amusing because in the back of my car I had 2 HUGE bags of clothes that were too big for me! I've lost 31 pounds since July .. which equals 6 pant sizes. So I am a big fan of recycling clothing. I ended up donating all of my clothes to a battered woman's shelter where I am sure they will be well needed.

15/365 Stairs

Staying on location at the Fall...I had to walk down these stairs to take some close up pictures of the Falls. Needless to say I was holding on to the rails all the way down with both hands! It was worth it though, the view from down there was breath taking!

14/365 Water's Edge

This is the full view of the Patterson, New Jersey Great Falls. It was breathtaking! I am having some issues with the snow and making the glare go away so I need to work on the image a bit more but I could not wait to post it. I took this shot kneeling on a wooden icy bridge with my camera wedged between an iron fence.

13/365 Curvy

So I finally got out of the house and was able to find a great spot for my very first photo shoot. I went to the Patterson, NJ Great falls. This is the 2md largest waterfall in the NorthEast right behind Niagra falls. It is 77 feet tall and it was magnificent to watch. You have to walk over a bridge to get to the falls and on the way there are little drops and when I looked down the water's edge made a wicked curve - the water was like silk flowing around this curve and the little drops all around were all white with movement. It was beautiful. I wanted to capture a wider angle but I had to shoot this through an iron fence so this was as wide as I could get without putting my camera through to the other side and you know I am just not that daring! I really didn't do any editing to this photo just some minor croppping on the right side. I'm going to post the entire waterfall tomorrow I just have to work on the photo - the ice around the falls is awfully bright!

12/365 Upside Down

This was taken with my little Canon powershot camera because I was afraid I would fall outside on the ice with while holding my Canon xsi. I only cropped this a little tighter and ajusted the WB very slightly. It was a fun shot of Sean trying to make snow angels in the ice (ummm for those of you in warmer climates - snow angels are made best with fluffy snow!) I need to find some time to take some more creative shots but for now I'm getting some good pics of my kids for their scrapbooks (oh yeah I forgot about that hobby!!)

11/365 Outdoor Seating

I took this shot of my backyard garden - here is my favorite seat in the garden (ok it's the only one!) a stone bench that my mom and dad got for us when we bought the house (8 years ago.) It took a lot of hard work but I excavated the back yard and made a perfect place for this bench. We are having a snow storm so I thought that the snow on the seat just showed it off nicely (not that I would want to sit on it..brrr it's cold!) I adjusted the lighting of the snow so it wasn't so bright and enhanced some of the color on the mickey statue (no.. it's not you his face has faded to that color and I wasn't about to spend hours trying to fix it) and the bushes in the back.

10/365 Friendship (make your own theme)

This picture is dedicated to my friend who lost his father today. The yellow rose is a symbol of friendship and joy. I just want him to know how very sorry I am for his loss and that I am a friend he can turn to at this time. The yellow rose is my favorite and I hope he finds some comfort in this photo. - BG

9/365 Beverage of Choice

Ok this is a little vague and requires a little story. My friend gave me a recipe for a weight watchers cake that is 1 point if you use a can of diet soda and regular cake mix. That's it! So the boys were all excited to help make this cake (and no egg mess!!) Both the boys took turns pouring the diet pepsi vanilla into the mix and then Sean just thought it would be fun to lick the spoon and Adam didn't want to be left out! I just sat back and took the photos. My DH was in the background so I had to clone him out and I just adjusted the WB a bit. I'm still trying to get indoor lighting down..and seing as the weather is really crummy I'll get a lot of practice!! I also want to thank EV for the tutorials on how to make a signature brush- this was a lot of fun!

8/365 Pampered

This is Cash, he's the newest edition to our family. He is an English Pointer about 14 months old. We adopted him from a good friend of ours in December and he is just a bundle of energy. We have a small cape and he has decided to take over. I had such good intentions of keeping him off the couch....well for a day anyway. How he got my bed pillow I have no idea! Anyway we are dealing with him jumping over the gates that we put up so I'll be doing minor construction this week to figure out how to keep him in one place. We are also having a HUGE problem with him wanting to run. Just today he got out of the house and darted out of the house and ran through the neighborhood. My husband had to run after him on his broken leg and then get into a car and try and find him. Luckily he was about a mile away so we got lucky! So this is Cash, I'm sure he will pop up again.

7/365 Gap

This is my little guy Sean. He has an infectious smile and laugh and this huge gap between his teeth. He will need some dental work to fix it (hopefully later this year.) We were at my mom's I just grabbed my camera and took this as he was eating his cake. I had to closely crop it because he was making monster moves at me with his hands (gee...guess the kids don't like their picture being taken any more, don't know why...hehe.) Anyway I'm sure you will see many more pictures of him and his older brother Adam this year!

6/365 Communication

We have a Trio of phones in our little 2 bedroom cape and yet we can never find a phone. I am still working on my indoor lighting skills and depth of field focus.

5/365 What's in the box?

So we have one last Christmas gift to give out and my kids keep asking me "mommy, what's in the box?" So...had to take a picture for the challenge :) Now if only I could remember what was in the box I'd tell you! The lighting in my room is really bad so I had to do some corrections in PSE 7. I am not at the point where I understand back lighting or additional lighting, therefore I am trying to work with the lighting I have.

4/365 Hobby

This is my hobby - scrapbooking. I've been traditional scrapping for 4 years and digi-scrapping for 2. I wanted to practice depth of field tonight so I laid out my traditional pages on the floor and lined up my digi-books in the back. I am trying to watch my color balance as well - I started to adjust the settings in PSE 7...so any feedback is greatly appreciated!

3/365 Security

So this is security in our home. The big bear keeps the nightmares away for Sean, the taco bell dog keeps him safe and the little white blankie is his as well. Adam sleeps with the blue blankets and the red M&M pillow and even though he is 6 he never sleeps without them! I made the green blanket and the blue blanket for the kids when they were babies (the green one has a HUGE hole in it). I hope they stay this innocent forever (not very likely but one can hope!)

2/365 Theme: Broken

Well as some of you already know my husband broke his leg the other day and well of course I had to do a scrap page about it...so I hung up his x-ray and took a picture of it to show off his "broken" leg. I experimented with different lighting and even put my camera on the tripod for the first time. So much to learn!!

Let the fun begin - photo #1 Landscape

This is the first picture I took in 2009. It was taken at my friend Kathy's house where we spent New Years Eve. What a beautiful morning looking out over her deck at the lake. What a great way to start the new year. Happy New Year!!