Category: Photo of the Day

No big themes, no new toys this week, no deep thoughts; just rich saturated colours, cute kids and yummy light. There is something to be said for keeping it simple.

Nothing says ‘summer’ like a dripping kid fresh from the pool, wrapped in a colourful towel, right?

Then again, a kid on a swing is another great way to define summer. (I love his smile, but I may be biased.)

If you read my post from a few days ago, you would be correct to assume these are not my flowers. Luckily, I have neighbours who are far better gardeners than me!

I have a real acorn thing. I can’t help but collect them if I happen to see an oak tree shedding them. But, I’ve never actually noticed one growing on the tree before. I am ridiculously pleased about both this discovery, this photograph, and this quote I found to go with it: “Every oak tree started out as a couple of nuts who stood their ground.” Ha!

Another joy from nature this time of year is the bullrush. I don’t know why I am fascinated by these things, but I am! I like how desaturating this turned it from a bullrush in a ditch beside the school into something more about shape and form.

One of the other great things about late summer, aside from the golden, delicious light, is the morning fog that is a gift from the cool nights and humid mornings. I love how this looks almost like a fairy garden to me, and composed it so you feel invited to let your eyes walk from the dark foreground, through that gate and right into the light.

This last set is a trilogy that I wanted to put up as its own blog post, but I clean ran out of time.

This shot is the keeper. Lucas loves kitty, but I do suspect the love is unrequited.

Five seconds before:

Five seconds after:

(I think the expression on Willie’s face is priceless. And the fact that Lucas’s face is still attached to his head is a testament to Willie’s good nature!)

I hope your week is filled with delicious colour and gorgeous light!

I had fun with my Lensbaby Composer Pro this week, and left it on my camera for the whole week. I’ve learned a lot about getting the best possible images from it, but I may have developed a permanent crick in my left eyebrow from squinting one-eyed through the viewfinder, trying to find the focus. (Do you shoot with one eye or two? I’m so impressed by people who have mastered shooting with both eyes open, but I simply can’t do it!)

I also happened to read online that finding that focus spot is a lot easier if you use the “live view” LCD preview on the back of the camera instead of the viewfinder, but I’m not sure that’s a habit I can comfortably develop either. I think I’m just destined to have more wrinkles on the left side of my face as I squinch my eye closed! I’m also finding that my D7000 is underexposing my Lensbaby shots by at least one stop, sometimes as much as two stops, so I’ve started to shoot a bit more in manual mode. Ah, back to the good old days — manual focus AND manual exposure control. Glad I learned how to do all this stuff years ago!

I was actually trying to cut the grass when I noticed the light hitting Tristan as he played on the rope hanging from the treehouse, and stopped the lawnmower to go inside and get my camera for this one. I simply can’t resist delicious light!

There’s not a lot of explanation for this shot, I just find myself drawn to fences and fence posts and things like this. Go figure!

Speaking of things to which I’m drawn, oh look, it’s Watson’s Mill again! This is a reflection in the river turned upside-down so it’s right-side up.

One of these days I’m going to write a post about all the flowers that didn’t grow in my garden this year. These are courtesy of a neighbour. (Even after fixing this up in Lightroom, this one still seems a little muddy and underexposed to me. Hmmm.)

This would have probably worked much better if I’d had a normal lens on my camera, but the Lensbaby was all that was within reach. Every morning around 6:30, Katie and Willie have a little play. I loved how Willie ended up in the MouseTrap box that Lucas had been playing with.

It’s been a while since my beautiful old Underwood has been in my photostream!

And finally, I took this shot one evening last weekend when we were at the Manotick aquatic club. I like the near-abstract quality, and the sense of motion that the stretched Lensbaby bokeh gives to the image. (It’s Simon riding the cresting Daddy-whale!)

So what do you think of the Lensbaby shots? I’m really pleased with it, although I think it has a reasonably limited utility. I’d like to try some more portraits with it, and it should be fun to take downtown with me to explore the Byward Market one lunch hour. And I think it’s the perfect lens for fall colour. But let’s not rush into fall just yet!

It took three posts about 365 this week to do it, but I’m finally all caught up. Yay! And sorry for the glut of pictures this week. Well, not really. All these years, I’ve always said that I can only blog what’s in my head, and my brain is pretty much entirely in the shape of a camera body these days!

One of the things I never did get around to blogging this week is that it was my birthday on Monday. It gives me a certain geeky delight to finally be the answer to Douglas Adams’ Life, the Universe and Everything — 42!! And my birthday present from my parents, Beloved and the boys was something I’ve coveted for a long time, a Lensbaby Composer Pro lens!

What’s a Lensbaby? It’s a creative effects lens that turns on (in the case of the Composer line) a ball and socket, allowing you to selectively focus. You know how you can blur the background with a shallow depth of field by opening your aperture up as wide as possible, aka using the smallest f-stop number? With that, you can only blur out things in the frame that are behind or in front of your flat plane of focus. The Lensbaby allows you to blur out things in the same plane, and you can move the “sweet spot” of focus around the frame by twisting the ball and socket part of the lens. It gives a very dreamy kind of look to pictures, and a bit of a stretched perspective to the very edges of the frame.

It took a bit of getting used to it. This first picture I took was of Katie (since she was my first “baby” she seemed like a good first subject for my Lensbaby!) and while you can see the selective focus at work, it’s not a stunning example of the lens at its best. The sweet spot is about half way up her snout, and with an ordinary lens using a small depth of field, her paw should be in focus, too, because it’s the same distance from the camera as her nose.

The thing about the Lensbaby is that it’s a partly manual lens — you set the aperture from a set of magnetic rings you actually drop into the camera (so no changing apertures on the fly) and you can set your camera to aperture priority mode so that the camera chooses the shutter speed. I found, though, that the exposures were a little hit-and-miss and I’ve switched over to manual mode a few times to get better control. The hardest part, though, is controlling the focus. I used to be quite adept at manual focusing, because with my D40 and my 50mm lens, I had to manually focus all my shots. I’ve gotten lazier, or older, or less able to focus, though, and the manual focus thing is a little tiring. Worse, though, is figuring out whether the subject I’m trying to focus on is actually in the sweet spot or maybe I’ve got the sweet spot pointed somewhere else and the spot that I’m peering at will never actually resolve no matter how much I tinker with the focus. It’s definitely a learning curve. But when you get shots like this one, I think it’s more than worth it.

And when I went poking around Watson’s Mill one perfectly still and perfectly gorgeous summer morning, the Lensbaby and I had a grand old time. Lensbaby + Watson’s Mill + perfect summer morning = bliss.

Speaking of summer, is this not a perfect summer picture? I planted two whole packages of sunflowers this year, and even sprouted one inside (it was a Mother’s Day gift) and transplanted the seedling into the garden. You know how many sunflowers I got this year? None. Apparently while I may take pretty good pictures, I suck as a gardener. Lucky for me, there are publicly consumable sunflowers available!

Thank goodness, there are perennials in the garden that don’t require any care from me, like these yellow daisies.

I took this picture at about a quarter to six one morning while I was studying for my French test, and at the end of the day realized that I hadn’t picked up my camera again for the whole day – and so this became the picture of the day, my bedheaded boy.

Apparently sleep was an unconscious theme this week!

And finally, last but certainly not least… I mentioned that Monday was my birthday, right? What better way to spend a birthday than doing porch portraits of the two-week old son of a friend? Baby N is by far the youngest visitor to grace the porch, and he wasn’t really interested in being posed. Holy cats, the newborn photography thing is a LOT harder than it looks. We did manage to get a few good shots, though, and while we tried to get him all tucked up on top of the scale (his mom is hovering about half an inch outside the frame) that last leg would not stay put — and in the end, I kind of like it dangling like that. Isn’t he perfect? I think I might need another baby after spending time with him. Um, don’t tell Beloved.

From Lensbabies to lovely babies, it was a photogenic week!

Remember last time I did the 365 project, and I ended up having 366 pictures in it because I lost count? Yeah. The hardest part of the 365 project was counting to 365! And now, I’ve somehow gotten myself all out of sequence in being so behind. I’m on track for numbers, but somehow ended up with a week that has an extra day. Hmmm. Oh well, so this catch-up edition of my weekly 365 post is a little longer than the others.

Anyway, you can see why I went into communications and not, say, astrophysics as a career. I actually find astrophysics absolutely fascinating, but you probably need to be able to do things like, um, count. And keep track of things with a modicum more accuracy than I seem able. “We found an extrasolar planet with an atmosphere remarkably similar to the Earth! Where is it? Um, somewhere to the left of M31, give or take forty light years…”

Speaking of the intersection of paying work and photography (also good that I don’t rely on my segue ability for a paycheque, isn’t it?) I have some exciting news this week. I’ve been approached by Getty Images to license some of my photographs. Fun, eh? Stock photography doesn’t pay exceptionally well, mostly a couple of dollars per licensed image from what I can tell, but it’s more than what the photo was making just sitting there looking pretty on Flickr. I’ve seen some photographers making in the hundreds of dollars per month, but they have a lot more images and frankly, some pretty amazing work.

This is the first image up for licence, and there are about half a dozen more in the works.

Who would have ever guessed at the beginning of my first 365 project in 2009 that it would lead to all these paid photography gigs? I can’t believe how much things have taken off this month — it’s very exciting!

Speaking of 365 projects, didn’t I say this was supposed to be a post about catching up? Here’s what I set out to show you today. When I went downtown for my job interview with the CRA, I was sitting at a traffic light and admiring this view of Parliament Hill. I never fail to be humbled by this view! (Even though I am not really looking forward to the commute back downtown to the Market from Manotick, I am looking forward to all the gorgeous downtown photo opportunities!)

I was going for a sort of a chiaroscuro effect with this one – just a little bit of low key light on his face. Not entirely convinced it worked, though!

This too is a bit of a play with chiaroscuro – I’ve been thinking a lot about light lately!

I haven’t had as much time as I would have hoped to play with my camera even though I’m on vacation because I’ve been spending at least an hour or two each day studying for my infernal French exam. (I went to write it yesterday, managed to write the grammar test and then they sent us home because the AC was broken and they were shutting down the building!! Gah! I have to go back today to write the reading comprehension test!) Anyway, if you’re going to spend hours of your vacation studying for a French exam, there are worse places to do it than on the porch!

I love this picture so much that I almost hate to bury it deep in an extended 365 post. I’m betting you can figure out where I took it! 😉 (Have I mentioned how much I love the Agriculture Museum lately? If you haven’t gone recently, you must!)

You know my life is a little out of control when something as wicked-cool as the Social Capital conference happens and I can’t even get around to writing a blog post about it. But it was a week ago Saturday and it was *awesome*! One of these weeks I hope to write a proper blog post about it. This is from the round-table discussion I hosted on photography and Flickr — it was a great little chat!

Did I mention it’s been insanely busy? French test, conference, interviewing and scrambling for new job, and two (TWO!) portrait sessions for Mothership Photography this week. Yikes! This was from a session I did at a local park on that day when the heat blazed its way well past the 40C mark. It was crazy hot, but I had a great time with this toddler, his parents and his grandparents, chasing him all over the playground. Picture a not-quite-two-year-old on the loose in the playground wearing nothing but his diaper and a kilt. I know, adorable, right?

This was from a porch portrait session I did last weekend. The kids were all dressed up for family portraits, but once we had the formals done, their parents let them have some fun on the playstructure and the treehouse in the back yard. I love love love this — there’s something dreamy and lovely about it, don’t you think?

And finally! We ordered Chinese food one night, and Tristan didn’t agree with my fortune cookie, so he made me up one he thought was more appropriate.

Good fortune, eh? I’m a lucky girl.

Lacks “focus” — get it? Ha, I slay me.

I’m all over the place with the 365 project this week. Kid shots, car shots, flower shots, and even the return of TtV. (Actually, these aren’t this week’s shots — I’m still a week behind. These are last week’s pictures. I swear, I will catch up to myself eventually!)

You saw this one already, as part of my photo essay on our nightly vacation porch Uno tournament. I love the light in this picture so much it makes me want to frame it! The picture, that is. Not the light. Ugh, lacks focus, right?

And speaking of Lucas — is this not the biggest dandelion you’ve ever seen?! It’s bigger than my fist! If this is how big the dandelions are now, the mosquitoes must be the size of pterodactyls!

I drive past Jack May Pontiac on Prince of Wales every day on my way to work, and just about any other time I head toward town, and have been admiring this gorgeous green chevrolet for weeks now. Finally one morning I had to stop to admire it with my camera. I’m just glad I didn’t set off any security alarms, poking around in the lot before anybody had shown up for work! It’s a 1953 model, and the sticker price is a little less than $20K.

From green to yellow: this beauty was in a vase on my mom’s kitchen table, and I didn’t notice until I had my lens practically touching it that it had a neat double bloom. I added a bit of texture to give it that grainy, gritty feel — just a little bit of extra flavour.

I’ve been so busy working on portraiture and other camera techniques that I’ve barely taken any TtV shots lately. When I saw these daisies in bloom in the back yard, though, I thought they’d look lovely through the viewfinder of my Duaflex.

I got an action to create faux polaroids in Photoshop from Rita’s Coffee Shop Blog a while ago, and this picture of the boys at the Long Island Locks seemed like the perfect place to use it because it has a timeless vacation snapshot feel to it. I could put it in the album beside my old of my brother and me in the late 1970s and it would fit right in!

I was getting ready for work and noticed Willie “helping” Tristan draw (on the kitchen table. Sigh.) The backlighting from the window created a great silhouette.

As I said in the original caption, it’s hard to draw pictures of Sonic the Hedgehog when your pencil keeps getting attacked by Willie the Cat!

Oh my goodness, do I ever owe you guys a post about the craziness that is my life right now. But first, I have to clear the backlog of posts I didn’t write last week. And um, maybe a few from the week before. Like this 365 post, covering a week now almost two weeks in the past. Eek!

So let’s get right to the pictures, shall we? Lacking any better segue than that, the week started as any week should: with cupcakes! (You might remember this was part of a Friday Family Fun post on how to make rainbow cupcakes.)

Here’s how far behind I am – this picture is from Blog Out Loud Ottawa, which happened on July 7. It was a truly amazing night, with 21 bloggers reading one of their favourite posts to a packed house at the Prescott Hotel. I loved that this year the posts ranged from sidesplittingly funny to heartrendingly sad and covered all the ground in between. And yes, I read a favourite post of my own. And yes, I did manage to keep my shirt on this year. 😉

Willie continues to grow more tolerant of Katie. I can’t say I blame him for being cautious, her head is bigger than his entire body!

There’s a trestle bridge over the Jock River off Moodie that I have been eyeing for years. I finally stopped, but didn’t like much any of the shots I took except this one. I like all the triangles.

Oh look, more pet pictures! *cough*low-hanging-fruit*cough*

This is another one I’ve had my eye on for a while. (Can you tell it’s vacation time, I’m chasing down all the pictures I’ve had stored in my head!) This 1953 Chevy is sitting on the lot at Jack May Pontiac on Prince of Wales, and I admire it every time I drive past. It can be yours for just a little under $20K!

And finally, again with indicators of vacation mode — yep, I broke out the TTV contraption again. Something about daisies and TTV just go together in my brain.

Okay, that brings me up to the middle of last week. Here’s hoping I can make a move toward catching up this week — but I’m not counting on it!

Yikes, I have been so crazy busy this past week that I’m a whole week behind on my 365 posts. I have managed to take a photo each day (actually, a couple of times I took more than a hundred pictures each day!) but despite spending hours with Lightroom and Photoshop, I never did manage to get a post written about them. So here’s the pictures from the penultimate week, July 1 through 7. With any luck, I’ll get last week’s pictures up by the beginning of August!

This one is the finalé from my Dog Meets Cat love story. This one is my favourite, and while I loved the idea of storyboarding all the pictures, I think this one is lovely on it’s own — the cat behind the curtain has a kind of ethereal quality that reminds me of a Nicholas Sparks / Audrey Niffenegger alternate-universes kind of love story, yanno?

We bought a membership to the Manotick community pool (I know, we’re “club” people now, I can hardly get over myself!) and have been spending a lot of time there. Glen at OttawaStart.com used this picture on his OttawaStart guide to swimming in Ottawa – fun, eh?

I’ve been reading Judy Blume’s Fudge books to the boys, from Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing to Double Fudge. In one of the books, the boys go to the mint in Washington, which inspired the idea for a trip to the Byward Market to visit the Royal Canadian Mint, a destination none of us had ever visited. It was okay, not quite stimulating enough for the wandering three-year-old, but the big boys were interested enough in the 20-minute tour. They were a lot more interested, though, in the excellent milk shakes at Zak’s Diner (hadn’t been there in 20+ yrs!) and the visit to Sugar Mountain. In all, it was a fun day downtown playing tourist — if you haven’t done it recently, you should try! We ran out of steam before we made it over to Parliament Hill, so we’ll have to make another trek on a different day for that one.

I love composition of this photo of the boys perched on a box beside the National Gallery, lost in a sea of lilies. I also love the patiently indulgent expressions on their faces, too: I’m not particularly enjoying this, but it makes mom happy, so I’ll endure it.

This was from our rainbow cupcake adventure day. Hmmm, I think we’re due to try this one again! *drool*

We went on this massively weird road trip that was supposed to be a quick trip up to Kemptville to check out a flea market and maybe have some lunch. The flea market didn’t exist, and I couldn’t get a cell signal anywhere in Kemptville so I couldn’t rely on my iPhone map for directions. There must have been a classic car rally nearby, because at one point we gassed up and there was a 1978 corvette, and two other early 1970s vintage cars gassing up at the same station. We decided to truck on to Smiths Falls in search of other flea markets we’d heard vague reference to with no map and no real plan. We found these two old flea markets that were more junk shop than anything, but they had some fascinating stuff. It was a really surreal kind of day!

In particular, I was charmed by this set of 1960s-era salon hair dryers — remember these? I remember being terrified when the hairdresser used them on me when I was a kid. These ones even had little ashtrays in each arm rest — pure vintage awesomeness. I wanted to buy them just for the conversation-piece value of them, and Simon thought they looked like something that might launch him into orbit!

I finally enticed Kerry all the way out to Manotick (she was fixated on the fact that she passed dairy farms on the way out – she’s such an urbanite!) and we had an excellent adventure involving burgers at the Side Street Grill, a visit to the Mill, a browse in the used book sale that goes on every day across from the Mill in the carriage shed, and ice creams and coffee for dessert. Really, despite the fact that it threatened rain the whole time, it was a perfect little wander. I’d promised Kerry a portrait months ago, and so we set up an impromptu portrait session on the dam. Isn’t she gorgeous?

There are people who do entire 365 projects of self portraits and I have such admiration for them. I can barely stand to take one of myself every couple of months, but I did like the light in my room as I was sitting on the bed teaching myself how to better use my speedlight. (This is a natural light picture, though – the flash is on the bed with a book behind me!) I called it “Portrait of the artist in her natural environment” – with tongue firmly in cheek.

One of these days, I might even take a self portrait without the camera stuck to my face…

Help! I need more models!

I’ve really been enjoying taking pictures of people rather than stuff lately. The daisies in the garden are gorgeous, the sunsets are spectacular, but what I really want to take are portraits. Thank goodness the boys are reasonably indulgent to mom’s camera habit. (Okay, actually, they’re just easy to bribe.) It wasn’t until I started putting this post together, though, that I realized that every single picture this week save one was of the boys — and the last one was of the cat.

Really, I need more models!!

My friend Yvonne gave us this kiddie-sized wicker sofa, and it fits in perfectly on the porch. When I brought Lucas out to take his picture on it, I was just planning on a straight-up portrait of him sitting on it, but he had other ideas. I just laughed and snapped as he created the various poses for me, all without any direction at all. Clearly, I am grooming him to be either a Calvin Klein model or a circus clown.

Not to be outdone, the next day I had all three of them in on the action. I figured if I was going to offer porch portraits, I’d better make darn sure I could do it properly.

I had it in my head to do an entire week of porch portraits, but the porch version of this idea wasn’t coming together, so we moved it onto the lawn. It’s far from my original conception, and yet ended up being one of my favourite pictures of the boys, ever.

I’d remembered taking pictures on the little bridge beside the boys’ school on the first day of school in September, so I snapped one to memorialize the last day of school in June. They’ve both grown up so much in the last year, haven’t they? I love how these work together!

(It’s been at least two weeks since I used the vintage frames — that’s enough of a gap, right? 😉 )

We now interrupt this boyfest for a catnap…..

While all of Ottawa headed downtown to meet Will and Kate for Canada Day, we headed in the opposite direction. Much as I would have liked the crowds and excitement, I know the boys would have been bored and tired and probably not very happy. So we went to Calypso and had the best day at the waterpark ever — can you believe Lucas went on the big waterslides with me? He’s fearless! I didn’t bring my camera (!) and couldn’t really see the screen on my iPhone when I snapped this one of Simon, but it’s a happy picture of a fun family day, and the Instagram processing emphasizes that for me.

Speaking of family fun, it’s the little moments that make good memories, don’t you think? We wandered about Manotick one sunny morning to celebrate the start of summer, checking out Watson’s Mill and the toy store and stopping for lunch, and then on the way home we stopped for home-made ice cream at the HodgePodge Shoppe.

When I started writing this post, I wasn’t quite sure what the weekly theme would be, and then I realized it was as simple as this: happy. These pictures all make me happy. What a great way to start the summer!

Edited to add: Oops, I almost forgot — Thursday was the end of June, so here’s the monthly mosaic, too!

When we adopted Willie last weekend from the animal shelter, it wasn’t only because kittens make for excellent photo fodder. At least, that’s what I keep protesting. *wink* Truth be told, I’ve always been a dog person, and even though we’ve had cats for many years, I was unprepared for how quickly the little furball would endear himself to me! I’m only a few shutter clicks away from my official membership into the crazy cat lady club.

And hey, milestone fun this week – yesterday’s picture was 183 of 365, the half-way point. Hmmm, doesn’t seem nearly as momentous an achievement as it did the first time I did a 365 project. Maybe because I can’t really imagine *not* continuing this project for the foreseeable future?

I did manage to tear my lens away from the furball a few times this week, though. Last Sunday, we invited my parents over for a Father’s Day dinner, and then roasted a few marshmallows over the firepit as the perfect day descended into evening. The light as the boys played on the tire swing was magical, and something about this one epitomizes summer for me.

After a long stretch of sunny, dry weather, we’ve had quite a few days of rain. I liked this picture and the raindrops a lot when I took it yesterday, but looking at it this morning only reminds me of the torrential downpours from last night that seem to have flooded something from our well and caused water to (yes, sign, can you believe it?) flood into the basement. It’s not a lot, but enough. The well guys are coming this morning to look into it for us, but I’ve heard that a lot of people in Manotick had problems with flooding last night. 🙁

And of course, there were a few (!) cat pictures this week. This one was actually taken at the shelter, just when we were choosing Willie. It was nice to see on the LAWS website that the female orange tabby we were also considering was also adopted on Saturday. I love happy endings!

He’s kinda cute, and poses for pictures better than the kids!

He seems to like the patio door in my bedroom — the only place in the whole house with curtains. Admire them now, I fear they may not last the summer. 😉

This one made us laugh. We’d just finished dinner and the boys were searching the house for Willie. Tristan eventually found him in the closet in his bedroom, just about the most isolated corner of the house. He’d tipped over a bin of stuffies, and then curled up and gone to sleep with them. I know he’s happy with us, but in the shelter he was in a cage with half a dozen other kittens — maybe he’s wondering where they went?

After a week of cat pictures, I was feeling disloyal, so here’s a portrait of my first baby, the patient and always delightful Katie. You can read the whole story in her expression, eh? “Really? More pests in the house? Sigh.”

And this one wasn’t an official picture of the day, but it makes for a fun post-script, no?

You know what I just realized? I’ve inadvertently named our pets after the Royal Couple, who happen to be due to visit here this week. Willie and Kate. Ha!

Funny how the Muse comes and goes, eh? The last two weeks, I was definitely just going through the motions with the photography thing, but this week my spark reignited and I’m feeling passionate about pictures again. It was a very photogenic (and more than a little bit silly) week!

I love this picture, partly because I love the components so much. The blinds on the windows were one of the things that drew us to this house last summer, and I love the way the morning sun comes through them. The harvest pine table made from reclaimed wood was something I coveted for half a year before we saved up enough for it, and it makes the perfect centrepiece for a family dinner. And speaking of centrepieces, the vase is an Ikea special with a couple of fake flowers, but it makes me happy every time I look at it. It’s all about the little things, isn’t it?

And daisies, yes, I have always had a thing for daisies.

Also from the garden, these peonies still wet from one of those brief and blissful overnight showers we had this week. I like this one enough I’m thinking about hanging it up somewhere but, erm, we’re kinda running out of wall space!

And this? Well, there’s no real story behind this one, except that it makes me happy to have my toes painted to look like I’m keeping a box of smarties in my shoes.

(I am close to overusing the vintage frame effect, I know, I know, but I really like it!! Step away from the cheesy effects, DaniGirl….)

I supervised my first class trip this week. 🙂 The grade threes went to Upper Canada Village. These are two of the three kids in Tristan’s gang this year, sweet kids who made him feel welcome and at home in a new school. And sadly, one of them and the one not shown are moving to a different school for September… poor Tristan, the child who hates change.

You already saw this picture of my precious porch earlier in the week, but for the sake of the project here it is again. I’m excited about the porch for another reason, too, which I’ll tell you about in a couple of days. 😉

And, closing out with the leitmotif of both porches and overuse of the vintage frame, plus a good dose of my love of the random and absurd and inexplicable, is this found treasure. Here’s how I captioned it on Flickr:

Porch and front door used to be best friends. Then one day in 1975, that all changed. No one knows what happened between them, but they’ve been avoiding each other ever since.

The alternate caption was: “George! The damn porch is wandering again!”

Seriously, WTF? How does this happen? I totally love the absurdity and would buy this house just for the conversation-piece aspect of it. How exactly do you miss the porch when you install the front door, or vice versa?

I wish you a week full of beauty and random silliness!