Goodbye, cruel uterus

A cereal macro (unhealthy cereal is the prettiest, isn't it?) I have the feeling that cereal is going to be a staple of my family's diet over the next six weeks.

Although I left them this note on the refrigerator:

You see, tomorrow I'm checking in to the hospital for a hysterectomy. Long boring story short, it's time. (Anyone remember my ER visit a couple of months ago?) I'd certainly appreciate any prayers and good thoughts you can throw my way.

So I'll be missing for awhile, although the OCD part of myself (MUST! POST! DAILY!) has pre-scheduled some posts to go up for a few days until I can get back here, so I hope you'll stop by.

At least I won't be bemoaning the fact that I still don't have my camera back.

Sunset in my favorite field

Here's a sunset shot from my favorite cow field. Would you clone out the barbed wire fence? It seems like it would be a lot of work to get it right and I didn't feel like it. :-)

Sometimes, as you know, I just like to snap a photo of something that amuses me. I don't know why this struck me funny the other night as we went through a McDonald's drive-through. (I know. So bad for you. Not to mention it gives you McBelly AKA Bubble Guts.)
There had to be some sauce abuse going on to warrant a sauce policy. Who do you suppose was in charge of drafting the sauce policy? Do you think there was a sauce policy task force? Did they use an algorithm to come up with these numbers? Is the sauce policy handed down from corporate headquarters or left to the discretion of the franchise owner?
Maybe we should get these folks to tackle the country's current economic crisis. Look how brilliantly they handled the sauce policy.

More cows at sunset

I couldn't resist another cow nose photo:

I just love cows:

They're so friendly and curious. When I stop at this field to take their photo, they always stop grazing and walk over to see me and check out my camera. It's also on a well-traveled road in my town, so I usually have a few motorists (friends and neighbors, mostly) stop to talk to me while I'm out there photographing. They're so friendly and curious too.

Track star

One more shadows shot. DS's girlfriend lacing up her Nikes on the high school track. The original was way overexposed. As I tend to do before trashing a shot, I went nuts in Photoshop to see what I could come up with.

Changing Leaves

Help me Rhonda, I got total payback for dressing up Baxter the other day. He got himself skunked right in the face late last night. At this point I think it would be easier to just move than to get rid of this smell. And it's supposed to rain for the next couple of days. Lovely.

Anyway...

Remember this leaf from the other day?
I think I was really lucky to find it when I did. I was out shopping and spotted it on the sidewalk. It was so colorful I thought it was one of those fake silk ones from the craft store I was standing near. I picked it up and took it to my car, plopped it onto the black jacket I had just bought for DD, and shot a photo with my point-and-shoot. Then I darkened the background in Photoshop. I must have grabbed it just as it fell off the tree, because it changed colors within a couple of hours and looked like this:
I love Mother Nature, except for skunks. Skunks suck.

Please come home, 40D

I miss my 40D. But I'm giving my little point-and-shoot a workout. Here's a view of the front of The Christmas Tree Shop: my go-to place for tacky holiday decorations. I sure do like a little tacky in my holiday decorating. (Every time I hear or say Christmas Tree Shop, in my head I start singing "I like to shop at the Christmas Tree Shop" to the tune of "I like to shop at the duty-free shop" from Seinfeld. Remember that one?)

And since I like to try a theme photo at least once during the week, here's a shadow photo. It's me doing one of the few shadow puppets I know. I think I'm ready for a Vegas show, don't you? But I should probably comb my hair first.

Halloween sneak peek

Good thing I still have a point-and shoot-camera or I wouldn't get to show you Baxter in the Halloween costume I bought him the other day.

DH doesn't believe in dressing up dogs. I don't either (although I like to threaten to get a purse puppy to dress up just to make DH roll his eyes), but Halloween is different. So are hats, sunglasses, and reindeer ears, but other than that I totally don't believe in dressing up dogs. Oh, I forgot bandanas, holiday collars, and Christmas apparel. And those headbands with springy antennae and decorative accessories. Real dog clothes are just silly and ridiculous, though. :-D

My li'l pumpkin. I wanted him to be a chicken or a pig, but Target didn't have a costume big enough.

I love how he's so humiliated he won't even look at me:
Hee! This is why I like to dress him up. Just to see that look on his face.
Last year he was a lobster:
And Spiderman the year before that:

Happy Fall

We've got lots of trees turning color now. I took this shot with my little point and shoot. I was going to complain about the focus, then I noticed that little brown cow down there isn't in such sharp focus herself, and that was shot with the 40D. So I'm thinking it's the operator. :-D

Woe is me

After talking with technical support, I sent my 40D off to Canon today. :-(
Here's what I was shooting when it so rudely broke on me:
I forgot to tell you guys this part! When I went to get my DRebel to use as a backup, I got an error message there too. It's an "Err CF" and it looks like I damaged one of the pins last time I put the memory card in. Since this camera isn't under warranty any longer, I took it to the camera shop I use (an hour away) thinking they could repair it, only to be told that they just send it out to Canon anyway. D'oh! Guess I should have called them first. Since I didn't want to waste the trip, I went shopping. :-D

How now brown cow

Well, my camera is still toast (I tried all your suggestions, Jess. Thank you.) and I'll be calling Canon first thing Monday morning. Until my cameras are fixed I have about 90 billion photos on my hard drive still to edit, so I'll keep busy and keep up with POTD.

Here's another cow from the other night.
I love the hairdo on top there. It reminds me of someone.

Maybe this guy? ("What business is it of yours, friendo?" shiver)
Nah. Maybe this?
Nope. Now I know who I was thinking of. It's more like a chestnut-colored Bert or Ernie:
Yup.

How now black and white cow

This lady was nice enough to pose for me during magic hour last night. She was very friendly. She tried to kiss my lens.



I think my 40D is broken. I'm getting an Err 99 message and it won't shoot. I'm bummed. I had finally wrangled my way onto the sidelines for DS's football games and it died within the first minute of today's game. Good news is it's under warranty still. But when I went to pick up my Rebel to use as a backup, I got an error message there too! It looks like I damaged one of the pins where the CF card goes in. Maybe it's karma for the hatred in my heart against turtle-children? I hope repairs don't take too long because it's almost leaf season here!

Architecture: Old Door

An old church door:

Canon 40D with 24-70mm lens at 54mm
ISO200 F5.6 SS1/125

A t-shirt that cracks me up:

Acorns and female porn

My daughter used to sing this song in preschool:

I'm a little acorn brown
Lying on the cold, cold ground
Everybody steps on me
That is why I'm cracked you see
I'm a nut (click click)
I'm a nut (click click)
I'm a nut, I'm a nut, I'm a nut (click click)

Except she used to insist it was "cocoa ground" not "cold, cold ground." I miss those days.

And a little funny for you. I got this in an e-mail from a friend. It was titled "female porn." (I'm going to grab those nasty Google searchers again):

Things I Hate, Vol. 1

Here's a photo of something I hate:

I loathe these things! And what the heck is it anyway? A child? A turtle? A turtle-child? And it has eyes, so why doesn't it have a nose or mouth?

And why does my neighbor have one? Dude, you live on a dead end in the middle of nowhere. We see maybe 10 cars a day up here. You don't exactly have traffic screaming through YOUR DRIVEWAY at 50 miles an hour. Maybe you didn't put it up for its supposed speed-deterring effect; maybe you just think it's cute. It's not. It's seriously fugly.

What I can't figure out is why I hate them so much. It's not like my house and yard are ready for a Better Homes and Gardens photo shoot. I don't much care what ugly lawn 'art' people put in their yards. But these turtle-children bring out this unreasonable anger in me that makes me want to speed up and run them over whenever I see them (ironic, no?) It's this weird visceral thing.

I think I'm not alone in my hatred, however. I came across this story. Seems there's a violent movement against them in Bethesda, MD. I think I'm fighting my dark side better than the Bethesda vandal, though. My neighbor's turtle-child had lost its flag one day, and I stopped to put it back. Sure, I hate the thing, but there's no reason not to be neighborly.

Pots

Taken at a flower shop at Faneuil Hall marketplace in Boston with my point-and-shoot.

I liked this crop, but since the original (above) wasn't sharp, this was even less sharp. Instead of trashing it, I decided to try a texture:

Boston

This week's theme is architecture. Here are a couple of shots from my weekend in Boston, taken with my little point-and-shoot camera.

"America's most beloved ballpark," Fenway Park. I'm sure the announcer at every major league ballpark says the same thing. It's my most beloved ballpark, anyway, even if you do have to be child-sized to be comfortable in any of the seats. This was taken from the bleacher seats, where you get the added entertainment of seeing lots of rowdy riffraff getting thrown out. One of my friends would shout, "Fisticuffs!" when that guy in white would spring into action. I love the word "fisticuffs."
We were in Boston to catch a couple of Red Sox games, but we had about an hour to kill on Sunday so we stopped at Quincy Market.

Bee on sunflower

Another shot from my favorite sunflower field.

Sunflower field

The sunflower shots I've posted in the past few days came from this beautiful field I stumbled upon last fall and like to visit a lot now. I have a hard time photographing it as a whole, though, especially on this day when the light was so tough with bright areas and areas in shadow.

Soccer

It's soccer season around here too. DD made captain of her middle school team.The original color shot:

Red trailer

Does a trailer count as a vehicle? If it does, I'm on theme.

Baby sunflower

Another sunflower, getting ready to bloom:
Playing with texture on the same shot:
Then playing with hue:

Inchworm on sunflower

Cute, isn't he?

Canon 40D with 24-70mm lens at 70mm
ISO100 F2.8 SS1/250

Balls

One of my mother-in-law's grandchildren-attracting golf balls:

Canon 40D with 24-70mm lens at 70mm
ISO100 F3/5 SS1/8000
Adjusted in RAW, cropped, and added noise