More flowers...

Some more pictures of flowers and plants that I took on my way home after walking the kids to school. The sunlight has been very bright which gives me chance to work on my camera settings. After a couple of months shooting in manual, I switched back to AV mode because I found myself constantly changing the exposure. I'm gonna keep trying though...



The weather is warming up here and I'm thinking of what flowers to plant in our front yard. I'm horrible with flower names and even after a visit to the garden dept at Home Depot, I'm still a bit overwhelmed with all the choices.



Now back to the marsh...more flowers!

I was shooting a pretty yellow and orange flower then in the next shot an insect lands on it. Lucky me. The wind always kicks up here so taking pictures is always a challenge for me.

Flower

Same flower but with bug!

Garden Jaunt

I'm posting like a crazy woman to catch up on what's been going on. Not really but more than usual. One afternoon I had a hour free so I headed to the garden at the Madrona Marsh to take some pictures. As I was walking towards it, I noticed that the greenery seemed to be wilting because of the recent heat and thought I might have missed the spring bloom but armed with my macro lens I can see things magnified.

I took this picture in Feb and just thought they're unusual.

And look what they turn into! Pretty neat and funky.

I could stare at them all day.

Close up of one of the buds(?).

I guess it shows that you never know what's out there until you look carefully. :) Enjoy it.

More photos later....

Peeled

I dyed Easter eggs for the kids and since only Josh will eat hard boiled eggs (occasionally), I decided to make deviled eggs. :)



The shells were intact but the food coloring went through the shells to give them another layer of color. :)
Btw, my deviled eggs turned out great. I forgot to take pictures of the finished product and they didn't last long enough anyway before they were devoured. Yum.

Connected

Boy, that was a long 5 days without my computer. On Saturday, it decided to freeze and not boot up again. The computer guy said it needs a new hard drive. Ugh. So he backs up my photos, music etc and reloads it for me and now I have to go through the process of getting all programs up and running.

My most dedicated follower (my silly cheeseboy) said I can now blog again. Like as if he doesn't know what is going on in my life but I guess he likes my silly blog posts even if it involves yarn mostly, photography and other minutiae.



So I'm back in business and looky, I finished socks!! These are blender socks and it used up leftover sock yarn that keeps accumulating. There is recipe for blending yarns and I used the basic toe up pattern with gusset heel from the book Socks From The Toe-Up. I was really liking how these socks were fitting on my feet but for some reason these ended up a tad long so I'm going to put them in the Christmas grab bag.



The socks near the toes look similar then as I ran out of yarn, I grabbed random stray yarn balls and that's when the similarity ends. Happy socks.

Ultra Cuteness

Side project to get me jump started on socks again. Perfect project for using up all that worsted weight yarn taking up space. I knit this for a pregnant acquaintance and since I don't know the sex of the baby, I decided on bright colors.

This is the elefante pattern.

Time Warp

I realized that I didn't finish up our spring break update. The problem was that I took so many pictures that day and I haven't taken the time to go through them to pick which to upload.



So today is that day but I can't show everything on this blog so visit my Flickr site to see them all.



We went to Laws Railroad Museum and spent about 3 hours there. Hector dawdled behind us so he could read and look to his heart's content while the kids raced ahead with me somewhere between them taking loads of pictures. There is so much to see and explore there; I think it will be a regular stop to stretch our legs and expand our minds. If you ever are heading up to Mammoth and want a diversion, head 5 miles east of Bishop and visit this awesome place.

I haven't even uploaded all the pictures that I want to so I'm sure there will be another post showing more...

Spring Garden

Here are various photos of my time at the South Coast Botanic Garden on Tuesday. I used my macro 100mm lens mostly and had the foresight to bring my tripod/ cable shutter release. I could have spent all day there because there is so much to see and experience. Spring was a nice time to visit, even the cacti were flowering.

Enjoy...

Pure beauty and simplicity.

Mammoth video

Here is a video from Mammoth. This was our 2nd day and we are skiing Canyon. The shaky part of the video is due to me filming while snowboarding. It's a talent of mine. :)

Day @ the beach

Yesterday was a scorcher so here are some pictures of our day. We had lots of fun with Sherri and her bunch. There were lots of people but not crowded and everyone seemed to be in great moods. All day people were chatty and happy.

Tyler's deadly sand crab catch. :)

The weather was hot and the ocean was not but that never stops the kids who wanted to be in the ocean all the time. Soon a lifeguard came by to warn us of the riptides so we moved the kids to a safer distance.

Tyler spent his time looking for shells and rocks while making friends with another boy while Joshua helped with bucket brigade, sand building and wave jumping.

Helping haul water.

Poor Josh is chilled to the bone.

Josh lasted as long as he could before he started shivering so that was the end of his ocean adventure. He then stayed on the beach throwing the football with me and Alex.

We had a great day although the sick sea lion was sad to see but it made our day memorable.

Sea Lion

Today was blazing hot so Sherri and I made plans to take the kids to the beach. More on that later but the highlight was the sick sea lion washed up on the shore. The waves would carry it up and down the beach because it was too sick to swim any further.



Sort of strange with the sea lion on the beach and people swimming in the ocean.

Boingo Saturday morning

My iPod woke me up to Oingo Boingo so I thought I'd flashback to the 80's. :)

And this for Hector who has to work this Saturday. No official Boingo video but a student film made in 1987.

50 steps: Soft and Hard edition

Soft squishy yarn. I heard good things about Three Irish Girls so I snagged some with my gift card and it's waiting in the holding bin until I clear out some projects.



Pyrite or Fool's Gold that Joshua picked out at the Laws Railroad museum. He chose a nice one which was a bit more difficult to photograph than I thought.

50mm lens

100mm macro shot

I'm still figuring out exposure, ISO and aperture to produce the photo I want. I switched over to the 100mm macro also that aggravated my already sore wrist.

I'll end my post with another soft photo...another Vortex hat. :)

Alamitos Bay

Yesterday, I went to Alamitos Bay to use my bday gift certificate from ABYC and meet up with Kat for lunch/photowalk. I bought some lovely yarns, had a very nice lunch and took a few pics in the breezy marina.

These buds on this tree grew in random spots on the branches.

The buds emerge into this.

What I like about photography is finding that little detail and trying to capture it in a great way. Sure there are the nice boats in the marina but everyone takes pictures of those. I found myself drawn to the items around the marina, mostly the trees, plants and whatever catches my eye.

I shot down into the yucky water over the railing which looked disgusting in real life but in a photo, it has an interesting look to it with the colors of the rocks and little ripples in the water.

Flowers.

Flowers growing out of the concrete.

Overhead view of above flowers.

Random Odd Fact

Not really odd but it might be to some people...

Normally, I sleep on the left side of the bed but when I go on vacation and sleep in a different bed, I choose the right side.

Some people are very consistent (anal) about this but H and I don't seem to care much. :)

Shoot away

Floating Tyler head.

It's funny how this photo came about. We were in Mammoth waiting in the parking lot while Hector & Josh were getting ski poles. I took my camera out to play with and took a pic of Tyler behind the car window. I glanced at the pic on my LCD display and took more but with the door open. It wasn't until I uploaded the photos did I really see how this one came out.

I like that surreal feeling that his head is floating in sky and that you really can't tell how I took the photo.

So I guess I'm saying is don't delete any photos until you see them on the computer. You might be surprised with what you see.

Photo of Tyler with the car door open.

easing up but not really

I've knit so much this last week my wrists are sore and tired. That's because of the bigger needles and yarn equals more movement for my wrists. Add the fact that there was the time between the hockey season and playoffs so I needed to fill in the time. Playoffs start tonight so knitting will resume (which never really stopped) because I have to focus on something else while partially listening/watching especially when the Kings play tomorrow. Yikes! My team has a HUGE battle this round so I'm keeping my toes crossed because my fingers will be busy.

A new added factor to playoff fever is the Playoff prediction pool that I joined with other hockey-obsessed knitters on Ravelry. Oy! At least everyone will contribute a prize and recieve a prize so it should be fun and interesting. I had to pick a team for each round (East and West) and how many games the series will last. We get awarded points according to our picks and I'm not sure if the winner gets bragging rights or a bigger prize but that's how it goes.

I just read an article with signs that you might be obsessed with hockey and thankfully, I'm not near that level but I can totally tell spot those fans at the rinks.

Back to knitting, I need a mindless project for playoff knitting and I have some already to go. For my birthday, Kat gave me a gift certificate at ABYC in Long Beach and during my birthday month I get an extra 20% off. Yay!! I'm gonna go today and spend my bday money!! It'll be a nice day to brush the BMW off and drive it fast.

Vortex...no capes.

A brief interruption to show the latest hat I knit on Sunday to keep me busy while I waited to see how the NHL Western conference playoffs would play out. Super tight this year and the Kings end up in the 7th seed and play against the Sharks (2nd seed) but I digress.




I cast on for an adult size hat thinking that I would wear it because of the pretty pinks and greens in the yarn but as you can see in the pics, it is child/toddler size. I need to go up in needle size which I should have checked before I started. Oh well, I still have plenty of yarn...



I love the unusual construction of the hat with the stripes and little swirly peak. I'm adding this to my playoff knitting project list for some Christmas gifts until I become distracted (again).



http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEwinter08/PATTvortex.php