Exposure

Yes, it has been a while here.
Still making photographs and sharing them on Instagram and Flickr.
Still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.
Gearing up to show a couple of prints, for the first time, in a local art show.
I am excited and a bit nervous.
Okay, the closer it gets the more I worry.
It is about exposure - exposing myself.
It's time.
Below are the two I am having printed on metal for the gallery. I may do a couple more, not on metal.

I've also added some of my best work to my 500px account and placed a small order of Moo cards with some of these photos on them. Yep, exposing myself. YIKES.

Now the goal is to stay focused.

In the mean time; below are some links I'd like to share. Things the distract me. Sometimes in a good way...

Let’s all love ourselves first. I fear my phone will be off a lot on the twelfth day.…

The only thing we can control is our reaction…

I’m a slumper…

Happy Tuesday!

Another week flew by....

Week of May 18th - 24th

Flowers from Hubs for Mother's Day

Spent Monday at a Golf Course

Waiting.

The backside of Mt Diablo, again.

I love these little fat birdies.

Bought Hubs some flowers.

A week of no photos

May 12th - 17th

There was a full moon this week. This photo is from the on in January.

I didn't take any photos this week. I'm not sure how this happened. Oh wait, I know how. Work, hormones, family members with health issues...so much going on. 

I know, I know, if I make the time to find and capture the beauty that is this crazy, whacked out world with my cameras I will feel so much better. Even if it's only for a few minutes. 

I'm just so damn tired.

I'll make up for my lack of picture taking on Monday. I'm the photographer for our Company Golf Tournament. That should equate to hundreds of photos. Yep, I'm a bit nervous. And exhausted just thinking about how long that day is going to be. So I'll just stop thinking about it for now. 

Mother's Day Weekend

May 9th - 11th

Also seen on Flicker

Friday evening sunset through the front door

Also seen on Flicker

Sunday morning  - Flowers and Candy from Hubs.

Also seen on Flicker

Morning light

God I love my 50 mm lens.

Also seen on Flickr

Amazing brunch created by my Duchess with a little help for her brother 

Have I said how much I love my 50 mm lens?

Also seen on Flicker

And Dinner made by Hubs - because Mother's Day is all about the food, right? 

And a 90 minute massage in the middle of the day. YES!!

Food

May 7th -

This here is my weakness. Sourdough bread. Mainly, croutons. Now, why did I make these if I know this? Well, I was making a caesar salad as part of our dinner. We must have croutons and fresh made ones are the best as the packaged ones are unacceptable. Well, most packaged ones. Semifreddis are the bomb and Trader Joe's has some that will do in a pinch. The problem is, I can't stop myself from chowing down on them, especially when I am hungry. No control. I can control myself around chocolate better than I can croutons. Don't get me started on grilled cheese sandwiches. Oye!

Who am I kidding? When I am hungry, having waited a little too long to eat, I just want to eat everything. Do I pick vegetables? Sometimes. Usually its the stuff I really know I need to have in moderation and definitely not when I'm starving.

Now to go cut up some vegetables for the day. Everything is going to be....

Flickr version here...

Walking in the evening

May 6th -

More flower photos on Flickr...

When Hubs and I do get out for our evening walk, we talk, vent and check out our neighbors yards. We are both looking for ideas of what we can do with ours and that is usually as far as we get on that topic. I'm always looking for a photo op and lately it's flowers. We have lots of houses with roses, which are all starting to look a bit done lately so thankfully there are so many other flowers out there. These are from the bird watchers house down the street. His yard is full of bird attracting plants. Last night we stood there for a while watching humming birds. We managed to get a lap and a half in before we ran into another neighbor and got caught up on what all our adult children are up to these days. We also talked about how we are all ready for retirement. In about ten years.

Mondays

May 5th - Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Flickr version here

Worked a solid day, with no break for lunch then came home, made tacos with Hubs and actually had a sit-down-at-the-table-dinner with the our boy and his girlfriend. After everything was cleaned up and put away, Hubs and I took the dog for a walk. Now this is something we need to do every night yet for some reason we haven't been. It always makes us feel better and most of the time I find something to shoot. Like this happy sunflower that begged me to come capture it.  I feel like I've had a productive day when I move my butt before I crash and burn for the evening. Cheers to the rest of the week. 

This week...

April 26th - May 4th

Bailee is a sun worshipper. As long as it's not too hot.

Miss Peaches makes friends with dogs. 

On our way for a walk in the hills.

The Diablo Valley and it's mountain.

My boys.

Yep, Oak trees are an obsession of mine.

Sunsets too.

Good night.

My week in review

Friday, April 18th

Some of the photos from this week are over on Flickr

Saturday, April 19th

Waiting, waiting, waiting....So ready to RIDE!!

Watching as an injured rider is being airlifted out of the park by Calstar

My favorite place. The top.

Easter Sunday, April 20th -

These puppies are ready for our morning ride.

The light and shadows stopped us in our tracks

Saw this from way down at the bottom road. 

Monday, April 21st

This is my baby. It's his 22nd birthday today. They grow up so darn fast.

This has become a tradition for his birthday dinner.

Tuesday, April 22nd -

Out of the office for a way overdue mani/pedi  - in the middle of the workday. YES!

Company/Client dinner.

Best Gin and Tonic EVER. And oh so pretty.

This here is just a small indication of the remodel noise and chaos going on since February. They keep saying "it will look so nice when it's done." In AUGUST.

That's it for this week folks. On to the next crazy, busy, overwhelming week. Yes, I really do appreciate all that I have and having something to do whether I like it of not. But can we just slow it down a smidge here?  I'd like to take a nap.

It's my thing

And over on Flickr...

April 17th - Always looking up at the sky. A lot of my photos are of the sky, power lines, buildings, clouds, sunsets, a few sunrises. Yep, I've always been a dreamer. I spend a lot of time wishing I was somewhere else. Let me clarify; I spend most of my time at this job I have, wishing I was somewhere else. Where? Hmmm, outside taking pictures, Texas with my grand babies, on top of a mountain, at the beach, in an airplane, in my car/truck, in my bed...  I do believe I have felt this way most of my life. I struggle to be in the moment. Maybe I just have too many moments I do not want to be in. And the overwhelming theme lately; time for a change of venue. 

A little reminder

April of last year

April 17th - Looking through some photos from this time last year and was reminded of the pain I was in for about a week or so. My lower back had gone out and it was so bad, I had to resort to medication and sleeping over an exercise ball. I couldn't sit so I couldn't work or drive. It was awful and of course, I was worried it was permanent. I imagined I would be on medication and incapacitated for the rest of my life. One of my biggest concerns was that I wouldn't be able to get out and take pictures again. Thank goodness, I got better and since then have lost about twenty-five pounds. I am so grateful to be over that. Now, I need to get moving here and do some stretching. 

Blessings

The Flickr version here...

April 15th - The idea here is to write down a blessing each day and put it in this jar. I do this, usually in the morning for the previous day. Kinda like this blog. My best time of the day is in the quiet of the morning, by myself, after I have had my coffee. So, yes, this is when I can appreciate life and it's blessings. I started this jar, again, this January. The jar is pretty stuffed now and I may need to get  a bigger one. Some days I have lots of blessings and some days I am just blessed that I have this jar and am capable of writing. 

Sunny warm Monday

Also found on my Flickr stream.

April 14th - As tired as I felt, the day turned out pretty good for a Monday. Got my work done, shipped an Easter package to Texas, went for a couple of walks and managed not to lose my shit over stupid little stuff. Really, it's all little stuff. 

Hubs sent me an email in the morning with some photos from the weekend and he signed off with "It's Monday so...Have the day that you have." I love it and it makes me giggle. No pressure. 

The Wall

And over on Flickr...

April 11, 12, 13 - I hit the wall. This past week kicked my ass. Looking back now, it doesn't seam like it was all that bad but I was...not good. Clearly I'm doing it wrong and this needs to stop right now. As I type this I realize the last week or so I have not been making good choices when it comes to nutrition. Yeah, I've been eating like crap. Too much sugar and wheat. I know better. As much as what I eat and don't eat is about losing weight and getting healthy, it is just as much about my moods, my hormones and my energy. I know this and yet I forget and then wonder what the hell is wrong with me. The part that really pisses me off is that my photography suffers when I am a cranky, emotional mess with no energy. So, I start over, again.

On another note: I had a nice weekend which included pizza, beer, donuts, french fries, watching a whole movie...oh, wait, this is about the friends I got to see. Our best friends came down Friday night so we could go to a friends surprise 50th birthday party. She was very surprised because it was two months early. Saw friends we haven't seen in many years. Then Saturday I had lunch with a good friend from high school that I see about once a year but should see more often. Lunch, a glass of wine, walking through antique shops and catching up is always fun. Yesterday was chores and then crash and burn. Yep, it really was a great weekend even through the fog of the gluten hangover.

Lamb walker

April 10th - Yes, I took a photo yesterday and I posted it to Instagram. This is not it.

This week started out great and went down in flames with each day becoming more and more of a struggle not to completely lose my shit.

So, I started reading an article by Chase Jarvis about being Creative and I realized my 'photo a day' mentality may have stifled my photography.  A photo a day does give me some focus. At least I do this for me every day and it is a big deal to have this little bit of structure. My concern is that I think in terms of getting the one photo, take forever to make up my mind on editing, etc. and then sometimes scramble to get it out there before the end of the day. And then I forget about all the other photos I have, years and years that I want to, need to, would like to edit and share. There is this time issue. Oh and my attention span. HA! What attention span?

Back to this photo - one I've wanted to share for a while; This is from a drive up to Tomales last month. My first post back here was photos from this trip. This is a gentleman who likes to take his lambs for walks, like they are puppies. That's a busy highway he is going to cross but according to the locals, he does it all the time. One gentleman said bringing his lambs out for a walk is how he gets all the ladies to talk to him. Right after I took this, Hubs and I went into the local bakery to get a snack and on the walls were poster size photos of the locals, including the lamb walker.

The sunset that saved my day

View more of my photos on Flickr

April 9th - You know, I just can't get enough of beautiful sunsets. Still waiting for Hubs to build me a platform on the roof so I can get up higher. This one was on a walk with my son and his dog. 

So, the day didn't totally tank. Still, so tired of being tired. I'm working on changing this but my day job just kicks my butt most days to where I have very little left in the evenings. By the end of the week, well, I am ready to throw in the towel. Okay, that's not true. Usually by Wednesday I'm done. Yes, I am so very lucky to have a job but man, can we please slow this bus down so I can have the energy to do some of the things I actually want to do? 

Breakfast creations

April 8th - Yes, I like taking pictures of food. Only when it's delicious though. I've read and heard the negative comments about people who post food photos and sometimes I hesitate to share them because of that. Sometimes I think the photo is just not good enough to share. Take meat dishes...so hard to capture an appetizing photo of steak or pulled pork. Yet I am so inspired by the food photographers that make me want to shoot (and eat) good food. I get excited about a dish I have created so I want to capture it and describe what is in it....Here we have an organic breakfast bowl of creamy parmesean polenta, sautéed asparagus, sautéed spinach and two eggs-over easy on top. The organic part just happened to work out that way and the polenta and asparagus are left-overs from the night before. It was super yummy and very filling. Next up, taking more of these with my Canon vs my iPhone and working on my editing skills to get more detail out of the veggies in the bottom left corner there. Oh and maybe I should get back to editing on my external monitor instead of this laptop. It's worth noting (for my future reference) that this was taken while getting ready for work. So between making my breakfast and photographing it, I was late for work once again. 

Using my "real" camera

Looks better on black

April 7th - Oh, why I don't take my Canon with my 50mm lens on it EVERYWHERE, I just don't know. I am in LOVE with this lens! I went out for a walk just as the sun was setting and thought to myself that I would look for other things to photograph instead of flowers. You know, break up my photo stream a bit. And then I come upon my neighbors roses, which are exploding with color. I capture a few images, which I posted on Flickr and then I move on. For one, I need some exercise. it's a beautiful Monday evening I made it through the day. I'm almost done with my walk and I see this tree. What kind of tree is this? It's gorgeous! And I was all over it. I must be to sure walk  this way daily to watch and see what it does.

Gardening?

View this via my Flickr stream

April 6th - I used to have house plants. I also planted flowers, in a flower bed once and they actually grew. Then as I had more children, cats, dogs, moved a few times my thumb turned black and they all died. The plants, not my thumbs or the humans and animals in my care. Now I have trouble taking care of cactus. Yeah, I don't know what this is all about but now I'm going to attempt a small vegetable garden with my daughter aka Duchess. I have been thinking about trying again because I feel the need to grow my own organic food. I could go on and on about our food supply but I don't have time right now and well, focusing on one topic at a time is something I am really having trouble with these days. As I noted above, I've been thinking about growing a vegetable garden lately and then the Duchess texted me last week asking me what I thought about the two of us doing a small one. Perfect. Now I have someone to help keep me focused.