Catching Up

A friend came into town this past weekend, and all the happy hours, wine tastings, eating, and laughing, not to mention an incredibly luxuriously relaxing Sunday, got in the way of posting photos. But I did carry my trusty camera and phone with me, and I did my best to remember some of the themes of the day while out and about. Let's see how I did.

March 11--Someone You Talked to Today: I have no idea who I talked to on the 11th, but I did talk to these two lovely (albeit underexposed) people on Friday night. So that will have to suffice.


March 12--Fork: My goal had been to capture a sign of the restaurant in town named Fork, thus killing two birds with one stone, but we never made it that far on Friday. By the time I remembered the theme, I had already polished off my ricotta-stuffed mushrooms, some sea salt flatbread, and several meatballs. Yum! This was all that remained.


March 13--A Sign: A couple signs seen on the walk back to the car after a lovely happy hour at Flatbread Pizza in downtown Boise.


March 15--Car: This guy was in front of me yesterday on the drive home from the airport. I have no idea what he has against gyros. I think they are a very tasty treat. In fact, last night, this license plate must have been lingering in the corners of my mind, as I decided to order up a bunch of Mediterranean food from Mazzah's for our book club. Yum, gyro meat. Or maybe he doesn't like gyroscopes? I don't know. It's a puzzle.


March 16--Sunglasses: It's time to feature another gorgeous niece, doing her best Vogue in my monster Smith sunglasses. (My camera phone does not have a flash, obviously.)


March 17--Green: On St. Patty's Day, I headed out to the local co-op to gather up the ingredients for our wine-tasting tailgate party at Indian Creek Winery. As I walked back to my car, a bagpipe piped up from around the corner. And there was a guy in a kilt (yes, I know, kilts are Scottish, and not Irish ... as are bagpipes, technically), serenading the parking lot. I know a lot of people aren't fans of bagpipes, but I think they are so eerily cool (when played well).


Wow, I am ALMOST caught up with the month.

Whoopsie!

Yesterday, in searching for the next five photo-of-the-day topics, I actually decided to sit down and read the rules. Apparently, this photo-of-the-day thing requires carrying your camera/phone around and taking pictures of the day's theme on that day. Go figure. I have been seriously cheating.

So yesterday, I started taking pictures in the actual moment. This is going to be much harder, as this now requires me to think about the theme while I'm out and about, remember to have something to carry a device to capture that theme, and then, the hardest part, get home and get it from my camera/phone and onto my computer. For many people, this is easy. But I have an Android and a Mac, and the two do not always play nicely together.

Yesterday was not the 14th, but I thought it was, just like today I think it is the 15th. I'm also having serious trouble remembering whether it is 2012 or 2013. Really. I think all the talk last year about 2012 being the end of days made me think that 2012 already happened. Anyway, none of that is important ... well, is any of this important, actually? So, I went out and took a picture of clouds, because that was the theme for the 14th, which is what I thought yesterday was.

Confused yet?


I love my retro camera app almost as much as I love my nieces. It makes photos look so cool.

Two Days in a Row

It's a record!

Of course, I do much better when I have a theme or something to deal with than when I am just sitting down to blab. I present for your viewing pleasure, today's pictures.

March 6--5 PM: I know for a fact that it wasn't 5 p.m. when I took this picture. But if ever there was a happy Happy Hour shot, this would be it. (Yes, obviously, in my mind, 5 PM could only be referring to happy hour. Is that so wrong?) This was taken during our trip to Portugal, and it was such a wonderful day, even if we did end up walking 8 km (in flipflops), with a blacktop road on one side and cliffs dropping down to the ocean on the other, in search of a beach that we could actually reach. (p.s. We did succeed, and then took the bus back.)


March 7--Something You Wore: I wore this dress on a rather special occasion. But it's the little cape I love. We got married in January at Chief Hosa Lodge, just outside of Denver. It was a gray, stormy day, but I was determined to have our photos taken outside. My mom, clever woman that she is, knew that a sleeveless dress in January might require a little something extra. So she made this satiny, fleece-lined, fur-trimmed cape, which I absolutely love. I just wish I could find a reason to wear it again.


March 8--Window: The Sentry Dog at his post on our bed. It's just the right height for him to look out onto the street so he can see what's going on in the world (and then bark at whatever is going on in the world). What a good little watchdog. (p.s. Please ignore the unmade bed, cluttered chest of drawers, and dirty laundry on the floor.)


March 9--Red: Double Jeopardy!! Shot #1--This tree was one of the few things I liked about living in Dallas. It wasn't my favorite place to live (at all), but staring at this spectacular autumn tree from my office made it a little more bearable. Shot#2--A Sydney sunrise, as seen from The In-Laws' deck. Talk about spectacular!


March 10--Loud: I don't know if she is even making a sound, but Little Miss Ella Road Rage here looks like she has something to say. Have I mentioned how much I miss my nieces?

When All Else Fails . . .

... rely on someone else for ideas on how to keep this blog going.

I follow She Just Walks Around With It, who, I am happy to report (if only for my own consolation), has also been a little slow on the updating of the posts (granted, she has two kids, one of whom is a newborn). Anyway, this month, she was inspired by Fat Mum Slim to do a photo-of-the-day post on her blog. I too have decided to join in on this idea, albeit a few days late (surprise, surprise).*

[*Ed Note: I started this post on March 3 and tried to continue it on March 4. But I realized that a post all about photos would be a bit of a chore, since it just so happens that I accidentally deleted all my photos last month. So before I can finish the post, I have to scrounge up photos by stealing them off Mr. J's computer, Picasa, my phone, Snapfish, Facebook, and anywhere else I can get them. Then, on March 5, I came downstairs to start work, and EEK, my Mac wouldn't start. No fan. No Mac bingbong noise. No nothing. So off to MacLife I went. Now, more than a week later, I have my Mac back, better, stronger, faster ... but still no pictures. Time to scrounge together those photos so I can finally finish this post before the photo-a-day month ends. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.]

So without anymore further ado, my photos of the day(s):

March 1 -- Up, which happens to be one of Mr. J's favorite movies, so I chose his niece flying through the air during the Kite Festival at Bondi Beach (at least I think that's when this was taken).

March 2 -- Fruit: OK so there isn't any fruit right now. But these vineyards at Bittner Winery produced some mighty tasty wines, which we enjoyed during our 2nd Annual Post-Thanksgiving Snake River Winery tour ... which you would already know something about if I were ever to update this blog with our daily events.


March 3 -- Neighborhood: Mr. J, cruising the 'hood. Nuff said.


March 4 -- Bedside: This one was a stretch. If I actually took the time to charge the camera battery to go upstairs and take a shot of my bedside table, this post would never be done. So instead, it's me inside bed, taken after a flight from the US to Australia (that is my excuse for the ridiculously red eyes, and I am sticking to it).


March 5 -- A Smile: This photo will make my laugh until the day I die. My two darling nieces were both smiling and posing nicely for this photo, but as luck would have it, as I "clicked" the shutter on my phone, Miss Ella swung the umbrella bit, smacking Megan in the back of the head. Purely by accident. Of course. Can't you just tell by her innocent expression?


Since I am so far behind, I am going to do five photos a day until I catch up. If my math is right, which it probably isn't, I may be able to get these all in before March 31.

What Season Is This?

There has been a disturbingly severe lack of moisture here in Boise. No snow on the foothills, no snow in the mountains, not even any rain down here in our little valley. The hills that form the backdrop of our city just aren't as pretty when they are all brown and dead looking. (Yes, I know, that is the least of our worries with this winter drought we are having ... but still.)

Perhaps related ... perhaps unrelated ... but I think we have lost our second of two beehives. And that makes me very sad. The other hive abandoned its post sometime this fall. One day they were all there; the next, they were gone. In November. I'm not a bee expert by any means, but that seems like a really bad time of year to swarm to a new home. Someone who is a bee expert let us know that this kind of disappearance is a classic example of hive collapse. I feel like we let them down somehow, though no one seems sure of how or why collapse happens. Anyway, today I finally remembered to bring water out to our little hive this afternoon, but I didn't see anything when I stared into the little hole. Not even a bunch of little bee butts trying to keep out the cold. I hope I'm wrong and that they are all just nestled in there, biding there time until spring.

We don't really have the hives to collect honey, though we have partaken of the sweet stuff. I just feel better having a home for the poor, beleaguered bees of this world. Especially since they are the ones who decided to swarm into our yard and make this their home.

On a happier note, all this lack of snow and moisture means that the foothill trails are in excellent shape for hiking and biking. So that's good. My legs and butt like it. And The Dog loves it.

But a little moisture sure would be nice.

Pretty please!