Flower Photos

As part of my effort to use our camera more, I'm going to post at least a photo a week taken with it. Usually, I get lazy and just snap photos with the point-and-shoot for this blog. Because it's small. And handy.

So this will be my motivation (I hope) to use the D-SLR more and improve my photography skills.

This week's photos were taken in our back yard. I haven't done any post processing, but I'd like to see it in B&W.

1/80 at f/3.2,  ISO 100, 50 mm

1/80 sec at f/3.2,  ISO 100, 50 mm

Chester Won!

As my mom said, "I see competition was overwhelming for the little guy but he pulled out the winning vote." Okay, so he was only competing against one other dog, but he still won!

Thank you everyone for voting!

Little Chester will have his photo in the Rescue Dogs of the Twin Cities book representing Midwest Pug Rescue - Minnesota Division.

More on the book here

Weekend Recap: Shopping & lots of TV

Not much to recap here. We had a pretty low key weekend.

We had plans to go shopping on Friday night, but I had a headache and felt pretty terrible. My medicine finally took the edge off, so we were able to watch some shows. As in 5 episodes in a row of Homeland. In short, it's about the CIA, terrorism and sleeper cells. We just started it on Thursday night and finished it up on Saturday. Yeah, we're cool. It was surprisingly REALLY good though.

Saturday ended up being our shopping day. We got some cheap wine/champagne/beer at Trader Joe's along with a few other items. They have really good prices on odd things such as gnocchi and artichoke hearts. At our next stop, Adam got a few pairs of nice dress shoes for work and I even found a new pair of ballet flat type shoes. I live in ballet flats. Lastly, we spent at least an hour at H&M. Oh how I love H&M. Adam found some pants and dress shirts. And I got some random shirts. Good times.

Sunday was the big Fantasy Baseball Draft at our house. Adam made Jucy Lucy's, and I hung out upstairs most of the day going through stuff.

Later, we went on a walk and I brought the Cannon along. I really need to dust that thing off and get back into using it. Nothing relaxes me more.

"Hurry and catch up, mom!"

Oh yeah, and don't forget the 2 hour season premiere of Mad Men! So glad it's back on!

So did anyone go see The Hunger Games over the weekend? I'm hoping to go next weekend. I think I have Adam almost convinced.

Foodie Friday: Bucatini Carbonara

It may look less than delicious, but it was yum. Adam usually hates carbonara and complains relentlessly when I tell him it's on the menu. It's taken a lot of tries and adjustments to the recipe, but I think the use of lots of bacon (6 slices cut up) and bucatini (like spaghetti but hollow inside) may have converted him!

Have I mentioned lately how much I LOVE our butcher block kitchen counters?