Day 181

Sunset Flowers:

Day 180

It was beautiful here today so the boys and I had to take advantage of it when I got home. We love us a good nightly walk! So now with two tired dogs and a productive day behind me I think it's time to settle in with a good book.

Quiche:

Day 179

Well, its officially the end of an era. The Lawrence era that is. As some of you may know, Troy and I have been renting out our Lawrence home for the past three years since moving to Chicago. Today we closed on the sale of said house. Its weird, I thought I would be sad, but after all the crap we've been through in the past few months around the sale all I can say is Good Riddance! Now don't get me wrong, we love Lawrence, and maybe someday we'll even move back, but this was not exactly the smooth sailing home selling experience one might expect. So tonight we are celebrating and I've gotta be honest. It feels great!

Anyone else have anything worth celebrating today?

In all of my celebrating I may have forgotten I had a blog to do - hence the last minute shot. Sorry!

Celebration Vino:

Day 178

We drug ourselves out of the house today and into the 90 degree weather to go to Summerfest in Lincoln Park. The fest was a bust, and probably the worst we've been too. We're still trying to figure out if it was just bad period, or if all of the other events going on this weekend forced the vendors to pack up early due to the low attendance? Either way, we did get to enjoy some pretty decent music performed by one of the cover bands playing. I'm calling them Jack and Dianne because that was one of the songs they did.

Jack and Dianne:

Day 177

It's always a good day for a Haigh mini-Mexican-fiesta!!
I made a run to the best meat market in the city (Paulina Meat Market)first thing this morning. We slow roasted a pork shoulder all day and then had port tacos complete with fresh cilantro and lime juice. The pork turned out amazing! Thank you to Barb for the recipe. And no Mexican night is complete without margaritas. :)

In PS I added an exposure and contrast layer. Enjoy - we did! :)

Margs at Home:

Day 176

I sorry blog readers but Fridays aren't my best blog day. In fact they are my worst. I'm so exhausted by the time the weeks is over that it's so nice to just relax with the husband.
Planning a great day tomorrow including a fantastic homemade dinner - you'll have to wait and see what I have in store though!!

Pink Flower:

Day 175

Well, it's almost Friday. Finally.
Really looking forward to this weekend. Nothing much planned, but I'm exhausted and already excited to sleep in Saturday morning.

UNO:

Day 174

Productive is my middle name today. It helped that it was a a 14 hour work day. Plus it was storming out side so the idea of sneaking away for lunch or going for a long walk tonight wasn't horribly appealing.
Unfortunately after all that productiveness I've got nothing left for the blog.

I hope everyone is having a great week.

I almost feel the need to apologize for the below, but hey, not everyday can be good (or even average in this case).

NY Post:

Day 173

Calling it an early night so I'll be able to wake up for an early morning conference call. It's going to be a long day tomorrow. Work starts bright and early at 6:00 and and then I have calls through 8pm tomorrow night.

This picture makes me smile. It's more of a snapshot than at photograph, but I still like it. It's also out of focus.

Cookie Monster:

Day 172

It's funny how much one's understanding changes with age.
For example as I sat down to do the blog tonight I turned the TV on. To my surprise there lay my childhood in the form of Jennifer Gray and Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing! I LOVE this movie as I'm sure every girl from my generation does. I can't tell you how many times we watched this growing up. But, what I realized a few years back when I stumbled upon it for the first time as an adult, is that the "doctor" scene with Penny is much more than her being "sick". It's weird how we all just glazed over that as children.

In PS I added an exposure and contrast layer. Lastly I put a b&w layer over the top. Enjoy!

No Hunting:

Day 171

Happy Father's Day out there to all of you Dads!!

Well, I'm finally done with the Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest so I've relinquished the Nook. :( Back to the old fashion books.

I got all of my pictures mounted and ready to be sent. Submitting four total so wish me luck! I just have to managed to get them mailed off tomorrow. Nothing like waiting until the last minute!

Blur (exactly how fast this weekend went by!)

Day 170

Started the weekend with a really long walk around Lincoln Park and Lakeview. Even managed to get some sun on my shoulders!
Then I picked up my prints for the state fair pictures I'm submitting and ran a few other errands.
Ended this fantastic day with a meal on the grill and a homemade smoothie! Yum!

Picked these flowers up while we where out. I absolutely LOVE sunflowers!
In PS I cropped the shot to make it more interesting and also sharpened the image.

Sunflower:

Day 169

Wordless Friday.

Old Bins:

Day 168

Where did this week go??!!
Had a great day today. On top of being uber productive, I had a great lunch with an old friend from High School who's now working downtown and moving to the city next month. Yay! A new wine buddy!
Then, the boys (minus the husband seeing as he's still in NY) and I went for a long walk. It was beautiful out! They got home and sprawled out on the floor and haven't moved since. I see a good night's sleep ahead for them. :)

Screwed:

Day 167

I've been sitting here for an hour trying to think of something interesting to say. Hopefully everyone has had an interesting enough day not to rely on mine. :)

I had to "borrow" from my photo reserves tonight. I know, I seriously need to get my crap together. Don't worry, once I'm done with this book I'll be all about the blog again!

Sunset from back home:

Day 166

I have to be honest, the blog hasn't been anywhere near the top of my priority list the last couple weeks. A majority of my time/energy has been spent on work, which most of you know by now has been anything but normal 8-5 hours the last few months.

But this week is a little different. On top of work, I've found myself sucked into a new book. The last in a series of 3 books written by a Swedish author, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. The first two were fantastic and the third came out just a few weeks ago. The catch here is that my sweet husband bought it on his Nook (his electronic reader) which meant that it made absolutely no sense for me to buy it in a hard copy. My real theory is that this was his way of proving to me that my life had a large void because I didn't have the Nook.

Well, it worked! I love it. The best part is that on my commutes I don't have to wait for a stop to turn a page (for fear of the train coming to an abrupt halt sending my face into some stranger's armpit). Another great thing about this is that it takes up only a fraction of the purse space that my books normally do!

Nook:

Day 165

Long Day. Started early, ended late.
I got a decent amount done today, now I just need to focus on getting stuff done outside of work. Ugh.

I somehow managed to chop the bottom half of this photo off. Not sure how seeing as how I'm always giving my shots a quick review right after...
In PS I added an exposure, contrast and b&w layer. Lastly I added a tint.

Flowers for Sale:

Day 164

For a weekend of doing nothing, it sure went fast! I got all of my photos for the fair picked out and edited. Just have to send them over to the printer and pick up some foam board this week. Yay!
I have a long work week ahead that starts bright and early tomorrow morning. Soooo....I'm off to bed!

Rain Boots:

Day 163

I spent the day editing and picking pictures for my fair entries so around 10 tonight it dawned on me that I hadn't yet done today's pic! I think I have it pretty well narrowed down, but I'm always open to suggestions....

I replicated the can top and pasted it onto an additional layer. I used a pinch distortion on each of them, but in opposite ways.

Can Tops:

Day 162

WOW. Chicago was INSANE today.
For starters, the Blackhawks rolled back into town after winning a little trophy shaped like a keg....otherwise known as the Stanley Cup! There was an out of control parade downtown this morning that was still going a good 5 hours after it had officially ended.
On top of that it was the start of the cross town baseball rivalry. The Cubs vs. Sox series started today.
A good day to be a Chicagoan.

Lunch:

Day 161

Man, all day today I thought it was Friday. Talk about disappointment.
On the bright side, I do have tomorrow afternoon off. Yay! No reason, just needed some "me" time.
Oh, and in the morning I'll be making a trip to the golden arches for the first time in years. Yes, years. Watch Food Inc. - you'll feel the same way. Actually that's not the only reason, I just don't like the food.
Please picture me carrying approximately 100 value menu items down the street in the morning.

We made a trip to the dog park tonight. It's been so rainy that the boy's had quite a build up of energy. I tried to snap a few shots, but my "subject" wasn't cooperating. He was distracted. Look a little closer and notice that the ball is completely covered in slobber. Yuck!

Ball Thief:

Day 160

Blek! I've been off my game this week.
Every picture I've taken has just been so-so, out of focus, or just well....blek.
Today is no exception.

But I am excited about the subject. My mini salsa garden is full in bloom! I'll be able to make salsa from my own veggies in no time. Now all I need is an avocado tree...hmmmm. Think it would survive the winters here?

Question here: some of my jalapenos have black on them. Any ideas why?

First Jalapeno:

Day 159

Hello!
While picking up the house tonight I found this top. Wait, is that right? A top? It doesn't sound right. Regardless, it's an old toy that you spin. Sorry for the awful description. Anyways I tried to use it for my photo tonight. A lot of bad choices here, but mostly a bad background that blends completely into the foreground. Boring! In PS I tried to help it out a little by adding an exposure and contrast layer. I also added a cooling filter. Blah.

Top?:

Day 158

Monday. They're always the same it seems. One would think that after two days of rest, relaxation and rejuvenation it would make it all the easier to come back. Ahhh, to the contrary it makes it even worse!!

I like this picture, but I wish there was more negative space to the right. I suppose I could have just expanded it using PS, but sometimes there are just not enough hours in the day!

Spider Light (minus two le..err...lights):

Day 157

This post is actually for yesterday. Through no fault of my own (no, seriously, it wasn't my fault), I couldn't post yesterday. It may have been my fault that I waited until 10pm, but I had nothing to do with the blogger site being down.

So, here you go.

MI Plates:

Day 156

I don't think I could have dreamt up a more relaxing day!!
It was rainy all day here today and made a perfect lazy day. A no shower, pajama wearing, couch lounging, movie watching day.
Which ended on the couch with a pot of fondue and a bowl of apple crisp and vanilla ice cream. Perfect!

Fondue Dippers (only a couple):

Day 155

Today we got a package in the mail from Troy's mom, Susan. It was full of old childhood keepsakes of both Troy and his father's. One of the best things in there was an old book with wooden covers and string binding. It tracked the 1955 Pierce Sacks little league baseball team (George's) throughout the season. It was full of play by play articles and old pictures.
Thank you so much for taking the time to send these Susan. It was so much fun going through these with Troy.

I didn't use PS tonight - clearly seeing as how I would have removed the CD that's in the pic in the bottom right.

Little League Back Then:

Day 154

Long day. Really looking forward to the weekend this week.
Here's to a better day tomorrow and a good weekend ahead.

Fence:

Day 153

Hi All! I hope everyone is having a great week.
After the shelving installation last night we have managed to tear apart the entire office and our bedroom. So, rather than cleaning up the clutter, we're just making more. So....back to re-organizing for the rest of the night.

I've been in a real black and white phase lately. I wanted to put the below in b&w below but instead forced myself to post both versions. I think I would have liked the second better if there had been some sweeping clouds in the background to add another layer of texture. Enjoy!

Posted:


Posted B&W:

Day 152

First day back at work after the long weekend and week away. As I imagined, it was not nearly as productive as I needed.

Tonight, the husband put up new shelving in the office. Yay!!! I know this doesn't seem exciting, but for me it means getting rid of the old oak bookshelf that we've moved 6 times now. Plus, it means getting rid of stuff that we've been carting around ON the bookshelf for years. The best part? More floor space which not only makes the office feel better, but allows for our guests to have a not-so-cramped place to sleep. :)

For the below I added an exposure, contrast and b&w layer. I wanted to focus on all of the different layers.

Layers of Leaves: