Three Guesses

Both photos are of somewhat random objects; any thoughts as to what they are? The second one actually hurts my eyes a little :(

Stems

Just a random shot (to say I actually posted something) of my beloved Vera Wangs.....

For the Love of Orchids

~My mom has some gorgeous orchids~
Meanwhile, I'm waiting to see if mine will ever decide to bloom again :)

Focus Fun

Vibrant Rust

I found these 'pieces' at an abandoned cottage; I've photographed there before (the tire swing that was in one of my first-ever posts) but had never actually set foot in the yard until the other day. One man's trash is another [woman's] treasure!

Macro Hardware

Rusty metal is one of my favourite things to photograph! Luckily it's everywhere!

Rust Dust :)

Saturday Stroll

Here are a few more I took yesterday with the macro lens!

I like this first one because you can see a woodpecker hole in the tree behind the (lonely) leaf! They've really done a number on the trees that line the road that goes to my parents' house.
A little bit of bokeh in this one :)
The road has quite a number of log fences and there's always something great to photograph on them, the older the better! Here is a gorgeous blue lichen covered in snow/ice.
The end of a log fence; again I love the blue lichens and green moss!There's no shortage of snow mobiles in the area either. There were six of them racing around the lake all afternoon yesterday.

Squiggly

So, I chose this week's theme for the photo contest (bokeh) only to learn that I couldn't really take the kind of shot I wanted to with the lenses that are currently part of my family (of lenses!); I had hoped to pick up the 50 mm 1.8 but it wasn't in stock so I set off to give it a try with my mother's newly acquired 60 mm macro - WHAT A LENS! I loved it and am happy that she has agreed to let me borrow it for a few more days! As you know, my parents live out in the sticks so I wandered around for over an hour outside in the cold this afternoon, just taking shots of anything, everything, and nothing! Here are a couple of shots I took....there will be more to follow...I'm going to make this photo expedition last ALL week :)
In the first, the only editing I did was to crop it a bit and increase the contrast somewhat; all that's in focus is the squiggly little branch.

In this one, I processed it a little differently (same as above in addition to using the 'cross process' function in picnik) and I'm really liking how it turned out; notice that only a teeny tiny portion of the branch in the bottom right corner is in focus - like I said, I had so much fun playing with this lens and I'm a big fan of anything 'abstract' and I feel like these shots fit into that category!

Wakey Wakey

I'm a terrible wife and dog-sitter :)
I actually sat next to Brannon and Lola snoozing on the couch and waited for them to wake up so I could take pics of them. I suppose I'm also a delinquent photographer too since Lola's the only thing I've taken pics of in a week!
I figure it's safe to post these since Brannon doesn't actually read my blog, so he'll never know of this evil-ness!
Anyway, Lola has really taken to him; Chris and Tracy are going to have a hard time convincing Brannon to give her back!

More Lola

Lola's parents were married yesterday so I thought it was time for more pics of her.
In the first pic, she's trying to sneak a nap in the cats' bed and in the second she's hanging out in the bed in our guest room. She likes luxury!

Canada is Golden (and I saw it first-hand)!!

I know I've already posted all of these on facebook but I happen to have a few followers who don't "do" facebook so these are for them.

According to Stran (my gold medal game date), I have the best husband ever since he gave in and let me attend the gold medal game while he watched it at home. He says that Brannon's "one-up" on me...I say he's just playing a little bit of catch-up :)

Co-captain of the Swedish "diving team", Victor Hedman.

Our goalie (Tokarski) during the warm-up.
Markstrom during the warm-up.
My favourite players - Hodgson, Tavares and Subban.
More warming up :)
There were definitely more than words exchanged here :)I was caught photographing by security and was told my camera would be taken away if I didn't stop taking photos....I stopped for the most part but snuck in a few now and then. By the end though, I didn't care and I took as many as I wanted since the whole crowd was on their feet anyway (it would be hard to spot me) and it was likely that the security jerks had forgotten about me and my 'pro' camera.

And Canada wins 5-1!!!Player of the Game for each team; I have to like Karlsson now that the game is over as he is a Sens draft pick.

Tavares and Subban have been best friends since they were kids...oh wait, they're still kids :)
Team captain enjoying the moment!
It's PK's turn - he was a fan favourite :)
Tournament MVP John Tavares
Singing their hearts out to 'Oh Canada'!!

Dog-sitting

Brannon and I are dog-sitting for Tracy and Chris while they're in the DR getting married. Meet Miss Lola. So far Brannon and I are much better hosts than our kitties are but we're hoping that they'll come around in the next few days. So far they haven't come face-to-face....maybe tomorrow :)

I want to play - plleeaaasssseeeee

Oh why can't I play with the cats?!?!?!

Sun Worshiper

Bailie found a patch of sun on the floor today and there was nothing I could do to coax her away from it - not even tuna juice!!
I think she wants to go somewhere warm and sunny as much as I do!

One last holiday post

Every Christmas for the last 5 years my mom has given me the Swarovski snowflake Christmas ornament. I look forward to seeing what they look like each year :)
This year she also gave me a stand that will hold them - 20 of them to be exact. I hope she keeps up the trend :)
In order to make them sparkle, I placed our snowman (he lights up in various colours) next to them. The picture isn't so great but it looks really nice in person :)

It's not hockey....it's Tracy and Chris!

Tracy and Chris came over last night for our NYE gathering; they're getting married in a few days in the Dominican Republic and need a photo for their sand frame so I took a few. This one is my favourite. I assume it's safe to post it since none of my blog followers will be at the wedding so I'm not giving anything away :)

Ok, so there had to be a little hockey in my post....Canada played the USA last night in a real nail-biter. We prevailed though, 7-4. Here are the guys who came over early to watch the game.

We had a slight champagne mishap! I told my dad that we were going to buy a bunch of bubbly for our party and he gave us whatever he had in his collection so we wouldn't have to buy it. None of us knows anything about champagne but we now know that it does, in fact, expire. We wound up pouring 3 bottles down the drain (don't tell Dad!) because it had no fizz and tasted a bit like sweet vinegar :(
Thank goodness I had bought some that was really good, we just didn't have enough of it for everyone. The beer-drinking boys didn't mind at all :)