And month 2 is done

Today is the last day of February and that is one more month gone in my project 365. I have not missed a single day, yet. If any of you are paying attention, you may have noticed that I had not uploaded any pictures for about a week, though. It has been a crazy week. I have made sure I took at least one each day. I just hadn't had time to go through them and decide which ones I liked best. Today, I got off of work early and made a couple of stops. I stopped by this church I pass every time I go to my office. I took several pictures of the steeple and of the clock and some of the unique carvings around the eaves. I also stopped by our local restaurant row to take pictures of the eateries there for a project I have in mind about eating out. Lucky for me, there was a bonus waiting for me. The Crepe Myrtles in front of Razoo's are blooming. They are such a pretty shade of pink. I did my best to get a shot of one of the bees buzzing around them, too but was a bit wary of getting too close. It was way hard to choose today's shot so I will share a few more of them here.

Gratitude

“Gratitude helps you to grow and expand; gratitude brings joy and laughter into your life and into the lives of all those around you.”

Eileen Caddy

I have reason to be grateful today. I survived some staff cuts at work. God bless those who didn't. My heart goes out to them.

CD covers for my family

I took lots of group shots of my siblings with their families on Christmas and promised to burn CDs for all of them. Well, I finally burned them yesterday. Sometimes, I can be a bit slow but it is the thought that counts, isn't it? I decided that I couldn't just hand them over in their plain little CD cases, so I made these last night at my crop with all of my DFW CKMB scrappin' buddies.

No Barriers

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at it destination full of hope.

Maya Angelou

A Card for Lois

I got an email from my friend, Wilna, yesterday. She is asking for help in getting the word out on this project. She is asking for cards for her friend, Lois, who is dying from cancer. In return, Wilna is going to have a giant RAK give away. Please visit Wilna's blog (there is also a link to her blog on the right side of my blog under blogs I read. It is called My He{Art}) and see if you can help.

On Being a Photographer

While I absolutely do not consider myself an accomplished photographer by any means, I love taking pictures and hope to keep improving in my skills. After reading the following quote on Heather's blog, I have to agree that one of my favorite parts of taking the picture is the sound of the shutter as you push the button. LOVE that sound. It is even better now that I have the SLR and I can take those pictures repeatedly. Of course, I also love the part about freezing time but that sound is music to my ears.

"It’s about being a photographer.

It’s about the sheer joy of clicking the shutter…repeatedly! The sweet sound of the shutter and the explosion that occurs in your head and your heart when you make the shot. The deal is the shot, you know. You make the picture and you know something just froze solid in a shifting world. Something stabilized, for all time. You just hung your hat on a moment that otherwise would be gone forever, and now you can go back and take a look at that moment, be it amazing or ordinary, any time you want."

Joe McNally

My 50th photo of project 365

This photo project has been fun for me. It is making me look at everything with new eyes and a new perspective. I see colors and shapes and texture everywhere. I am constantly on the lookout for something new to photograph. I see things on the side of the road as I drive and I see new things in my house or in my yard each day. Today, I looked at this puppy in the front seat of my car peeking up at me from inside the box I threw him into and immediately knew I would photograph him when I got home. I picked him up to take him into the house with me to get my camera but liked how the sun was shining into the garage so I set him down on my new scrap counter that hasn't made it into the house yet. (more about that another day) I like that his shadow is showing.

The puppy belongs to Seth. Seth spent the night with me Sunday night because the day care was closed on Monday and I had agreed to keep him since Presidents Day is a holiday for me. However, some things came up at work that I had to deal with and I took Seth with me. We traveled to one of my remodels which was about 40 miles away. We got there. I took care of my business and we left. We were almost home when Seth started yelling from the back seat. "We have to go back! We have to go back! I left my puppy!" I'm not that big of a pushover that we were going to turn around and go back when I had to be there again today, too. I called the manager of the store who was kind enough to hunt for it. He found it and kept it safe for me. So, my 50th photo was a lost and found puppy who will soon be reunited with his boy.

new quote

To My Daughters....


“If you only try to please others, you're going to resent those people you're trying to please; the ones who are often closest to you. If you choose a path that you yourself want to take, then you're going to be much kinder to the people in your life.”

Sarah McLachlan quote

Pieces of Friends

Several months ago, I invited my blog readers to join me in a project. I bought a blank puzzle made by Technique Tuesday and asked everyone to decorate a piece for me. The only thing I asked is that they put their name on the front and that the edges remain unaltered so they can still connect with the other pieces. Other than that, they had free rein to do what they wanted. I got pieces back from places like Hawaii, Scotland, Germany, and Canada as well as several from the mainland USA. Some people painted their pieces and some covered them with paper. Some added "lumpy" embellishments and some remained flat. I even got one family photo. I love them all. I decorated the 4 middle pieces myself and titled it Pieces of Friends since each piece came from a friend I have made through this wonderful addiction to scrapbooking . I painted the border brown and stamped it with a white border all around. I chose brown and pink for my colors after getting all of them back and seeing those two colors were very much in prominence. Great minds think alike, maybe? I glued the whole thing to a piece of chipboard to keep it stiff and I plan to display it on an easel. The whole puzzle is just a little short of 12 x 12. Click on the picture and you can see each piece up close. The following people contributed pieces and I thank them all.

Liz Ness
Heather Prinz
Theresa Tyree
Debbie McCaffrey
Kelly Fowler
Corey Wagner
Betty Dudley
Samantha Welch
Joscie Cutchens
Marguerite Remington
Katy Cameron
Marti Cirillo

final puzzle piece has arrived!

This one is from my friend, Kelly Fowler. Isn't it pretty. Love the little shot of blue in this silvery wintery piece. I will mount them all this weekend and reveal the finished puzzle including my 4 pieces that I designed as a sort of title for the center of the puzzle as soon as I am done. Thank you to everyone who played along with me on this project.

Very Proud

Please join me in congratulating my nephew who is now officially Officer Matt Jxxxxxx. He graduated from the police academy today with lots of family in attendance. This is my brother pinning Matt's badge on him and the Fort Worth Chief of Police handing it to him. All of our children are growing up and becoming wonderful people we can be proud of. I wish his mother was still here to have seen this. She would have been just bursting with her unique style of exuberant joy.

They call eachother Sister

These are my girls. They make me laugh and they make my heart happy. I love listening to them giggle with each other and I love that they are so close. I'm not sure when it began, but they address each other as "sister." In addition, when one is referring to the other, she says, "my sister." All of this paper (solid and print) is Piggy Tales Chicken Little collection. Very fun colors. The flowers are even cut from their patterned paper. The flowers are up off the page just slightly cause I used really fat glue dots. The green circles under them are punched using a circle punch.

The seven wonders of the world

My daughter sent me this and once again, I got teary eyed. What's up with that, lately?

Project 365, January edition

My Acrylic Album

A new Brian Andreas Story

Small World

We sat in the car & the night dropped down until the only sounds were the crickets & the dance of our voices & for a moment the world became small enough to roll back & forth between us I read this and immediately thought of all those years ago when Curtis and I were dating. After seeing a movie or going to dinner, we would just go someplace, park the car and sit and talk for hours. Sometimes, we would go to a park, spread a blanket on the ground and just watch the stars. Life was simple, then. These days, I'd need a lawn chair because that ground would be pretty hard on these old bones. LOL

A new quote

Happiness is a direction, not a place.

— Sydney J. Harris

Couple of new layouts

I am one step closer

to actually doing one of those very scary acrylic albums. I went to Lowes, bought an 18 x 24 sheet for less than $6 and had them cut it into 9 pieces that are 6 x 8. They are in a bag on my dining room table waiting for me to actually do something with them right now. When I am through hyperventilating from coming this far, I might begin to decorate a few of the pages. The ones I've seen are just so cool. I am afraid mine will not be as cool.

Tagged

I have been tagged by several people in the last couple of weeks to write a descriptions of myself using the first letters of my middle name. The truth is that my parents didn't give me one! I was born Bernadette Johnston. I go by Detta and I use Johnston as my legal middle name. I'm really wishing about now that I had a short little middle name like Sue or Ann or Jo.

J is for joyful
O is for optimistic
H is for happy
N is for nurturing
S is for silly
T is for talkative
O is for open to new ideas
N is for natural

I won't tag anyone else but if you want to do this, too. I'll come read yours.

How are all my fellow project 365 photogs doing? I have not missed a day, yet. I just put all of January in a couple of photo collages and printed them. I'm going to design a scrapbook page to showcase them and do this for every month.

Desperate times

All week long, I've been squeezing my makeup tube and telling myself to stop at the drugstore and buy more. Have I done it? No. I've just kept squeezing and hoping to get just a little more out of it. This morning, however, no matter how hard I squeezed, nothing came out. I was getting ready for church. I was not going to church without make up. No way. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I cut that tube in half with a pair of scissors. You won't believe how much make up is lining the inside of those two halves! I bet I could go another whole week without paying $12 for a new tube. Sometime today, I have to go by the drugstore cause I forgot to stop on my way home from church, too....

It is done

I submitted my HOF entry electronically this morning. Uploaded 9 layouts and one crafty combo. Now I just sit back and wait. I really liked the pages I did and I can't wait to share them with you but I guess I'll wait and see if CK likes any of them first. (wink)