A journal of sorts.

I am an avid photographer with a love for digital processing. The Bearded One and I have become "Townies" once again and are in the process of transforming our suburban nest into a peaceful refuge.
This blog is where I like to stash things. An assortment of random thoughts, a recipe or two, a few of my favorite photos, and the processing thereof.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Torrential Tuesday

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Cottage Life

It's raining. Still. This morning's weather picture was wet. Not only wet but slightly out of focus. I didn't want to leave the front porch. That would have meant putting on shoes. So I peered out, snapped a picture of the floodwaters in front of the porch. Then it occurs to me that the drains are covered with leaves. I set the camera down, put on my shoes after all, and ran to grab the rake to de-clog the said same drains. I was drenched and done. Period. This is my explanation of the above non-weather photo. It was taken at 7:50 pm as I sat down to write this post.

We are becoming very good at being hermits. Recluses in the woods, hard pressed to leave the cottage's warm and cheery glow. I drew the short straw and made the trip into town to re-boot the supplies. I had put it off until late afternoon so by the time I got going it was dark, wet, and miserable. In the two and a half short weeks that I've been home I've become hydrophobic. Luckily for me Trader Joe's had everything on my list including the "Bearded One's" Ricolas. We did have stew meat on the list though and that was going to be a problem. The only "stew" meat they had was Angus @ 8.99 a lb. I'm sorry I'm not going to boil "Angus gold", so I rooted around and finally found a ribeye steak on sale for 5.39 which still choked me up a bit but I wasn't going to go to another store in this weather, so ribeye stew it will be.

Thanksgiving is the day after tomorrow. I can't believe it! I had told myself when I first took this voluntary layoff that I would be well prepared for the holidays, after all look at all the free time I would have. Sheesh... I'd get on the stick, or the ball, if I could only find where I put either one of them. I figured if anyone could help me Martha could...

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Good thing I don't have a dog to decorate.

Martha, or I should say Martha's staff,  always come up with some good ideas. Maybe that's what I need. A staff. Then they could make my christmas cookies look like this...

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Another great Martha idea

 

Instead of This...

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So thanks to Martha, this evening I am armed with inspiration and a new determination to move onward in my quest for Holiday perfection... I'll keep you posted. Everybody loves a train wreck.

Before and After

Looking in the archives again and found this photo of an Osprey that I took down here on our beach. He had just gotten into an altercation with a Bald Eagle and had ended up plunging with great force into the shallow waters of the mudflats. I went down as I heard the commotion in time to see him dragging himself to solid ground. He literally used his wings as crutches to pull himself out of the mud. You can see he is covered with the thick gooey mud.

Before

I liked this shot but was disappointed that I had clipped his wings on the left hand side so this morning I decided to fix it.

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Accidentally clipped his feathers on this one...

After

Ospray done warm

The fixed wing

 

Using Photo shop, I was able to widen the photo using "content aware" which is an amazing new feature, then added the wing tips, saving my poorly framed shot. Also did a watercolor version...

Ospray done water colory

Finished Watercolor Version

 

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Closeup detail in feathers- watercolor

 

Healthy Choices

The Bearded One made dinner of Tilapia, Brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes. He felt sorry for me having to go out into the weather. Very tasty. Oh and a nice glass of red wine with the neighbors.

Hmmm... Pause for Thought

Julia Child vintage...what a hoot... Live Television at it's finest.


Until next time...



 



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