Happy New Year!!!

2012, doesn't it seem weird to type that? Its going to be 12 years since I graduated from high school...12 years??!!! That's as many years as you spend in grade school, well except for you smarty pants people who skipped grades. It makes me feel old, old and kind of freaked out. I worry that I'll blink my eyes and tomorrow I will be 88 years old and wonder where it all went.

Our day so far has been lovely and very restful. Here in Phoenix we enjoyed cloudless skies and 80 degree temperatures. My doors have been open all afternoon to let in the sounds of birds and the smell of oranges and lemons that are starting to come out on the trees. I am glad though that next week will bring cooler weather. I am definitely not ready to start that climb up to 110+.

I'm sure by now everyone knows about and loves Instagram, (hint I just wrote about it yesteryear). I'm not going to lie, I stalk Instagram like I would probably stalk Facebook if I had an account. Today I found a fabulous idea from Miss James @bluebirdvintage. It is 30 days of photos. Since I have lost my desire to take very many pictures in the past couple of months (too much work, worrying about dust in my lens, the sun goes down early etc) I think this just might be the ticket to make me decide to use my camera again, (yay!!!).

Should be simple enough, right? If you decide to do it on instagram, let me know!!!

My first pictoral below showcasing the bad lighting in my room and my starting-to-grow hair!!! holla!

The View From Here

Here's my weekly photo, I'm really enjoying this project much more than I did the 365 project....(that's obvious since it only lasted for 11 days for me)




We are so lucky to have amazing Sunsets in Phoenix. These week we have been treated with some seriously amazing sunsets that have been off the radar, thanks to the storm front that moved through during the weekend.

This week's project for MCP's 52 Week/A Photo a week is the view from here, I took this from my front doorstep on President's Day. I must say, it was even brighter in person, this picture does not do it justice.

Words

This week's photo from the 52 week project was "words"



Sometimes words are better than anything else.

You can find my flickrstream here

You can find the 52 week project stream here

Lensbaby Macro Photos

Last Christmas Brandon gave me a Lensbaby Muse. I had been thinking about it for about year but had not asked him for it before then because I had heard mixed reviews. Up until now I have only used it a few times. Its not exactly intuitive because it doesn't meter on my camera, so its a big guessing game. I'm sure there are a few pros out there that just know what settings it needs to be on by the light, but for me, I really like using my meter. Since the weather has been so bad until now, it just seems like the light hasn't really been right on the occasions I have attempted to use it.

Fast forward to this past weekend, I had been looking into macro lenses so I could take pictures of flowers. It was depressing, those things are in the 1k range. I can't justify spending that kind of money on a lens that I'll use infrequently. Suddenly a light came on in my head...Brandon got me a Lensbaby with a macro kit! Tada! It works amazingly. I still have a lot of practice to do on it, but it was a lot of fun to play around with the settings. The Lensbaby is not an auto-focusing lens. You have to push and pull it around to get it into focus. It has different aperture rings that you can put in and it makes the "sweet spot" larger or smaller. I like using f8 still since the f2 is a little harder to control.

I went out and took pictures like a mad woman. A few of my favorites:

I am unsure what this white flower is. I tried to keep the tags next to all of my flowers so I would remember what they were, but the monsoon this past weekend took care of that. Honestly, this flower is teeny tiny, I was surprised that it actually looked like it had some size to it.




This is a picture of the very top of one of my allium blooms. I just barely missed a huge bumblebee on top, but of course the wicked wind out here started up and the bee took off.



This is the marigold sitting in my kitchen waiting to get planted in my big pot that is waiting in the garage. I have a few more plants to find to finish the pot or else I would have him planted already.



This little guy is also sitting in my kitchen waiting to be planted. Bless his heart, I need to do it soon, I would hate to kill him like my snap dragons. I think I kept them indoors too long.



Lastly, this is a picture of one of the leaves on my pumpkin seedling. He is getting extremely big. He has started growing out of the box I've got him in and down the side of the table. I keep thinking that its time to be planted, but then the skies open up and 50 inches of rain pour down and I thank my lucky stars I didn't plant him yet...his stem would probably break right in half.



I am extremely excited about this new-found use of my lens. The possibilities are opening up...although I am thinking I've got to figure out how to use my flash with this thing so that I can use it more frequently. Does anyone else out there have a Lensbaby and have been able to command their flash wirelessly while using it?