POTD Day 13 Perfect

This is the perfect lunch or dinner. I don't usually do rolls, but on occasion it is just the ticket. Some good edamame and a hot pot of green tea almost always compliments this. Finding really good sushi is kind of hard when you live 3+ hours from the coast.

Most of the sushi restaurants around here are actually run by Korean families, but that is okay because that means not only do you get good sushi but you also get good Korean food too!

This picture was taken at the restaurant I treat myself to when making the trek to the grocery store.

This picture was taken with my Fuji Finepix f50, no flash but with the macro enabled. I edit it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added a fuzzy border.
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Six Years Ago on In My Words...Musubi

POTD Day 12 Out And About

I had to go shopping for a gift for a 4 year old and her mom told me she would like books, so I decided since I already had to go to the local library to pick up some stuff, that I would also shop at a bookstore downtown and I would also get in an hour of walking as well.

This shot is the view looking down into the plaza of our downtown area. The christmas decorations are down and the spring/summer ones are up. The day was unseasonably warm. There were hockey players at the skating rink, and all the ducks were at the upper pond because they were working on the lower one. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of our park deer but none were about.

I found a few benchmarks, got a good walk in, some pictures for my POTD project and both errands done. Overall, pretty efficient use of my time!

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash. I edited in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border.
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Seven Years Ago on In My Words...Caching It High

POTD Day 11 Mistake

I don't know who made this mistake but it is a doozy and it is one of the things on the "To Do" list for the house. I already have the fasteners and the joist supports for it...it is just a matter of getting under the front porch deck and knocking it out.

There is also a lot of trapped moisture under the porch, so I also have all the stuff to put in some ventilation holes with covers. I won't be able to paint them to match the house until the temp warms up.

At some point in the future the porch needs to be redone in some way but for now, even without the joist supports, it is pretty darn stable and safe.

I took this picture while under our front porch with my Fuji Finepix f50 with flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added a fuzzy border.
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Eight Years Ago on In My Words...Family Reunion

POTD Day 10 I Am

Waiting...

My cousin gave me this amaryllis flower for my birthday in November. At the time, it was just a bulb with a plastic pot and a compressed clump of potting soil. It sat on my table for a while because I wasn't totally sure what to do with it. I was showing it to my sister in law when she was over and I realized that it was starting to actually grow (probably because our house is warmer than the store was).

It was time to get it going for real. I think I was hesitating because the instructions said it needed 75-80 degree temps and direct sun, which in the middle of winter, our house is never up to 75 degrees and there is no permanent place in direct sun for plants in the house. I decided to go for it anyhow...and when I have a chance, I put the pot in the sun on the floor in one of the rooms.

I took this image in our bedroom with my Fuji Finepix f50, no flash. This pic was taken a while ago so now the the stems are about 18 inches tall but still not in bloom yet. I edited the picture in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border.
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Three Years Ago on In My Words...Shutter Sisters For July

POTD Day 9 Details

This is the finished drawing from the Chinese New Year 2014 Festival demo that Yeh Fei Pai did for us. I wrote a bit about it in this other post.

He was working with his son during the demo and they both signed it. As he was drawing each of the eight horses, he explained their representation to us. It was really interesting. Both of them had great senses of humor too which made the demo all that more interesting and entertaining.

He is a pretty well known artist and his work is showing in a few different places. He is known for the celestial horses so his visit during the Chinese New Year celebration was ideal for this Year of the Horse!

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50, with no flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border.
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Six Years Ago on In My Words...New Art

POTD Day 8 Water

This picture was taken in the middle of the wading pool of our city park. The wading pool is a shallowed out area of the creek that runs through the park. I was looking down stream right near the "waterfall".

When I was a kid, my cousins and I would spend our entire day in this park for the whole summer. We would do chores in the morning and then make a lunch and head to the park. We would return home around dinnertime.

Our activities in the park would vary from day to day, but we would almost always eat our lunch at the lower duck pond. We would then pick from a number of things. Some days we would climb the big slide and take it over as a castle and turret to defend. Others, we would spend the day in the trails above the park (where I would inevitably get poison oak). Sometimes we would walk in the creek all the way up to the upper duck pond or even to the swimming hole.

I took this picture earlier in the year with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border.
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Eight Years Ago on In My Words...Happy Fourth Of July

POTD Day 7 Utensil

This is one of the beautiful Chinese brushes that Yeh Fei Pai uses when doing his celestial horses. He did a demonstration drawing at the 2014 Chinese New Year Festival we went to and it was amazing to watch. He did a drawing of 8 celestial horses and it was so appropriate considering that we just started the Year Of The Horse.

Apparently he came to the festival a few years ago and promised to return from Taiwan when the Year Of The Horse came around...and he did. He learned his trade from his father and is now teaching it to his son. His son actually worked on the drawing with him during the demo, filling in background, and shading. It was so cool to see them both.

They had great senses of humor too, and kept talking the entire time they were going through the process explaining some of it to all of us, and keeping the audience engaged. The weather outside was cold and rainy so it was fun to come in, have tea, each a few fortune cookies and watch their artistry. In a couple of days, I'll be doing another POTD that shows the finished drawing.

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash, but macro enabled at the end of the demonstration. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border.
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Six Years Ago on In My Words...Kanda's Grabs

Reading For Research

Saw this cool article on NPR and decided I wanted to check out these books. I have had a couple of children book ideas for a while and even took a children book writing class last year and thought that these books might be good research material. I immediately added them to my Goodreads "To Read" list and put requests in for them on my library card.

So far 5 of them have come in and today, I went and picked them up. While I was there, I picked up a couple of books that have been made into movies that I want to read before I see the movies.

I plan to read the children's books tomorrow and take notes in my writing notebook. I'll take the books back when the last two come in, and hopefully I might have one or both of the "movie" books done too. I am also in the middle of a couple of books on my Nook so there is no lack of reading material on my plate....LOL.
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My Reading Blog is located at http://mishkabook.blogspot.com if you want to check it out. I need to update it but plan to get on that in the next day or so!!

POTD Day 6 C Is For

...completed! It is not too often that my To Do List of the day is actually all crossed out! Mark your calendars...LOL. What was lovely about this one was that it always required a bunch of errand running but still I managed to pull it off.

I think normally I just put way too much stuff on my To Do list and it is just not possible to get everything done. Like today's list for instance is already way too big, but that is okay, it keeps me motivated! Now if I could just get caught up on my POTDs...haha.

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash but macro enabled. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border.
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Two Years Ago on In My Words...Productive

POTD Day 5 Square

Two of our nieces are pregnant right now. One is due in late March and the other in late April. I am working on baby blankets for both of them.

These are the squares for the blanket I am making for the one that is due in March. The blanket I made for her first child was a different pattern, so I thought I would make her a granny square one this time. I wanted to do bright colors on a black field for two reasons. Bright colors and contrast are supposed to be good for baby brains, and then the black field is reminiscent of the old style granny square blankets you would see.

I tend to do solid colored squares because they are just faster and less complicated, although I have done a few blankets with variated yarn so the squares were multi-colored with no additional effort on my part...LOL.

When I have a multi-colored blanket, I like to stack the squares in order of the pattern so that when I start to connect them, I am able to keep track of the rows. At this point, I have 6 of the 8 rows connected (you can't see this in the pic because I hadn't started connecting them yet). Once I finish the 8 rows, I will start connecting the rows to each other and then finish off by bordering the whole thing.

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50 in our dining room with no flash, but macro enabled. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for light, color and adding of the fuzzy border.
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Three Years Ago on In My Words...Finished The Blanket (this one was for another niece)

POTD Day 4 Childhood

This picture is of my sister and I on the front porch of what we call the 3rd St house. We lived in this house for a few years. It was a rental, but I would guess it is probably the first house that my sister has memories from. We had a big yard with a garage in back and like many houses in this part of our hometown, there was an alley that ran behind it.

Our hometown is very safe, even more so when we were kids, so we played all over this neighborhood, riding our bikes through all the alleys. We would find honeysuckles and blackberries to snack on. I have memories of eating apples and pears off the trees, and playing in the sprinkler in the front yard and then laying on the warm sunny sidewalk to warm up and dry off.

I remember climbing this super high cedar tree down the street and making forts all over the neighborhood with my friends. We lived in this house when Mt St Helens blew, and all of us kids would wear hankerchiefs over our faces (which I am sure did nothing to protect us from the ash)...LOL. Now that I am an adult, I am sure we irritated some of the neighbors cutting through yards and making noise, but it was still a fun safe childhood that I wouldn't trade for anything.

Our dad had a screen printing setup in the garage and I was his number one assistant. We also had a darkroom on the backporch that he would develop and enlarge images for the silk screen. Our grandma lived with us in this house until she married our grandpa. She had a little room off the kitchen, my sister and I shared a room, and our parents had a room in the front of the house. The livingroom and dining room were open to each other with some built in cabinets. It was a craftsman styled house with a huge front porch and pillars. I have driven by it recently and it is updated quite a bit and the yard is now fenced in front as well.

This picture was taken in the late 1970's by one of our parents with their manual 35mm Pentax camera. It was then scanned in on our HP printer and edited in GIMP 2.6 for light, color and adding the fuzzy border.
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Nine Years Ago on In My Words...In A Pinch

POTD Day 3 Something Orange

I have been buying a bag of clementines each time I go to do a stock up at the grocery store. I try to eat one a day if I can. They are quite refreshing.

So when this POTD came up, it seemed logical to go with the obvious choice in this case. They just looked so perfect!

The clementines are lovely and they provide vitamin c and other great benefits I am sure. I am fond of tangelos and tangerines as well but seem to have a harder time finding them.

I took this picture in our dining room with no flash on my Fuji Finepix f50. I edited in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and then added the fuzzy border.
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Last Year on In My Words...New Hike

POTD Day 2 Favorite

Oh my gosh...Norikane is one of my favorite artists, and I only discovered him a few years ago. I had gone to a fundraiser at a local gallery when we were in Japan and saw this piece and fell in love. For me, a lot of the time, art is about the story and when I saw this print, I just felt there was a story and I loved it.

We actually now own 5 or 6 of Norikane's prints and they all make me smile, each one with a story, which I think is kind of just his style. This one is called Miyajima-2 and I thought that the shrine torii with the water beneath just was so cool. I wanted immediately to know what the story was. This link explains part of it, if you are interested.

I took this picture in our office in our house in Japan with my Fuji Finepix f50. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border.
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My other posts about Norikane's works that we have.

POTD Day 1 You

Staying with my theme of not posting my face on my blog, I have once again a pic of my feet. This one was taken on a geocaching hike to a lake near here.

The water in the lake (which is an irrigation lake) is super low because we are in a severe drought. This allowed me to walk along the lake shore at a level that is not normal and see some really cool rock formations. My feet are on one of those cool looking rocks. I love taking pictures of texture in nature and this trip really gave me a lot of opportunities.

It gets really muddy in the clay here when it rains so I was glad to get this hike in before we got any rain.

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light, and then added the fuzzy border.
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Two Years Ago on In My Words...Geocaching Craziness

POTD Day 31 Polka Dots

This hankerchief doesn't really have polka dots in the traditional sense on it, but I love the design, and color and it felt like it met the requirements for this POTD. I got this hankerchief for Xmas a few years ago just in time for a 5K that was done in the middle of the night and was super cold.

I still take it with me on runs or walks that are on chilly days to keep my nose from running. It is big enough to tie up in my hair if I want, but I tend to keep it with my running stuff instead, since it was purchased for me as a running/walking tool.

I took this picture in our dining room with my Fuji Finepix f50, no flash but macro enabled. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light, and then added the fuzzy border.
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Nine Years Ago on In My Words...Brushing

POTD Day 30 Best Invention Ever

I became hooked on rice cookers when we lived in Japan for the first time. Many of my friends had them and I found them to just be amazing. The first one we ever bought was just a 5 cup one and we still have that one. It has a little tray inside for steaming veggies and fish. We have used the heck out of that thing.

Once we got stateside again, we purchased our newest one, which is a 10 cup one and the tray for steaming is at the top. It has several different settings on it besides just steam and warm which makes cooking things other than rice much easier. I steam fish and veggies in it for lunch at least three times a week and it couldn't be easier.

Thanks to my awesome friend Jai, I know how to do Thai sticky rice in a rice cooker and it saves me so much soaking time...and it comes out great!

I took this picture in our  kitchen with my Fuji Finepix f50 with flash turned on. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border.
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Six Years Ago on In My Words...Bunco Success

POTD Day 29 Window

This is one of the views from our front window of the house we had in NC for 3 years. I took a pic during each season from this same spot and this particular one is from the spring when the beautiful dogwood in front was just starting to bloom.

We knew we weren't staying forever so we didn't make a ton of changes to this house (hence the old fashioned pull down blinds), but nothing could take away from how cool the view was and how you could see each season through that window.

We had a lot of fun at this house. We did a big landscaping project in the backyard, discovered a bunch of new birds (being that we normally didn't live on the East Coast), and practiced up our skills in some home improvement areas we hadn't ventured into before. J's work didn't keep him away as much so he was able to divulge in some of the hobbies he enjoys like wood working, and we both got to play tons of golf which was awesome.

I am thrilled that the word for today really let me go back to some old pictures and check them out. I took this picture with our older Fujifilm Finepix f601 camera with no flash. I edited it in GIMP for color, light and then added the fuzzy border.
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Nine Years Ago on In My Words...Birds

POTD Day 28 Dinner

This was a lovely stirfry I made the other night. It was so yummy and I took pictures because I am probably going to write the recipe up for our family recipe group on FB. It isn't a hard one to make...as with all stirfries, you definitely need to have all your prep done since the cooking itself goes pretty quick.

I usually make this one with chicken but I decided at the last minute to do shrimp instead and it came out so nice and light. Another key thing to keep in mind is that you don't want to cook any of the veggies too long because you want them to to stay crunchy and bright. This means knowing the cooking time of various veggies so you don't end up overcooking one because you put it in too early waiting for another to cook. I always cook the green beans first because in this list of ingredients, they take the longest.

I also use fish sauce in this recipe so I definitely make sure to add it early enough that it gets the required three mins of cooking so it gets rid of the fishy taste and smell...key to the dish, that is for sure.

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50, no flash, macro enabled. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and then added the fuzzy border.
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Two Years Ago on In My Words...Two Favorite Things

POTD Day 27 Something I Bought

This is the vanity that I bought for our downstairs bathroom. When we had the water damage last year, the vanity in the downstairs bathroom was one of the things that was ruined. I wasn't all that sad about it because it was this ugly 96 inch long particle board cabinet, but not having anything in there has made that bathroom a little less functional.

Right now 1/2 of the old vanity is sitting in the garage being used as a counter since we don't have any of our stuff here yet and it gives us some place to put things but I will be taking it apart soon, so that we can take it to Biomass. I will be excited to see it gone. I have to remove all the laminate and hardware from it, not to mention the sink that is still in it before they will take it.

The new vanity is not installed yet since we have to tile the floors before it can go in permanently. You can see that even the drawer knobs and the faucet are not on it. I plan to rough in the plumbing just to make sure it will all fit. Once I do that, I can recycle the boxes it came in (which are taking up space in our garage). I am keeping the boxes just in case the vanity isn't going to work and we need to return it.

The top is separate so I can actually plumb it while it is off and that will make reaching everything, much easier. The majority of the vanity itself is solid wood which is what we were looking for, which also means it is super heavy.

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50 with the flash turned on.  I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color and light and then added the fuzzy border.
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You can follow along on projects on our house at The Bamboo Lagoon blog.

POTD Day 26 Fun Stuff

In May the year before we returned to our home, I went to a city festival with my sis and her husband. It is a week long event that includes a parade. We decided to hit the fair during the week to beat the crowds.

We bought tickets and went on a few rides. This is the ferris wheel type ride they had that we all three went on. We each hit a few different rides, my sis and I went on the Scrambler together which always makes me laugh uncontrollably. My sis and her husband went on a the Graviton (which I can't do because of the spinning) and another one I think was called the Tornado.

My BIL and I went on a ride called the Kamikaze together...it was an upside down ride but you were completely caged in so it wasn't that scary. My issue was with the gap between the shoulder harness and my shoulders. I should have pulled the harness down tighter before we started because as soon as we started to go upside down (and the hanging upside down part), I started to bang up against the harness. The next day, I had blood blister marks on my shoulders and upper arms. My feet hurt from wedging them under the footrest to keep myself from lifting up more than I was already.

The weird part was that the next morning, I woke up with this weird cold sensation all over my skin where ever it was exposed to the air. My legs in shorts would feel like I was wading through a creek if the wind were blowing. This continued for about a week before I finally went to the doctor. I just assumed the jarring of the ride had caused me to pinch a nerve or something. The exam was inconclusive and I was referred to a specialist.

Right about that time was when we moved back to our hometown and then a week or so later, I realized that I wasn't noticing it anymore...so I never went to the specialist. I haven't had it return since then but then I haven't jarred myself since then either...
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Five Years Ago on In My Words...Chase's First Cut

POTD Day 25 A Taste Of Winter

This pic is from earlier this winter, when we actually had some precipitation...any pics I would take now would not really reflect winter here (other than frosty), so I opted for a snowing one.

So strange to get 8 inches in December that hung around for over a week and then to not have a drop since then. Last year hit some records for dryness and this year is not starting off very good. Our local ski resort is not even open yet because there is just not enough snow on the ground.

The snow was nice while it lasted but fortunately, I had no where to drive to, so I didn't have to risk our truck in it. At the time, we didn't have the canopy on the truck so it was super light in the back end. Now the canopy is back on and we have four 60 lbs bags of sand in there so no sliding...

I took this picture from our driveway of our blue spruce covered in snow with my Fuji Finepix f50, no flash. I edited the image in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border.
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Nine Years Ago on In My Words...Learned My Lesson

Runs For Cookies Virtual 5K Report

Distance: 3.36 Miles or 5.41K
Elevation Change: ~90ft
Weather: 64 degrees, 10-15 mph, sun
Time: 48 mins

So I managed to get this virtual 5K done today. I did some geocaching afterwards so I was actually out walking around for about 2 hours but I knocked out the 5K first. I did 3.36 miles becaues the route I used was already set and I don't have a nearby route that is exactly 5K.

The weather was amazing...we are having unseasonably warm weather and on this way, we had some wind too, but that was okay because it felt great to be out in the sun in shorts and short sleeves. I am sure my body was very thankful for the Vit D absorption.

I didn't take any pics during the 5K portion but I did take a bunch while geocaching afterwards that I can post (see below). I don't post images of myself on here so I can't add any of those to this. Here is a link to my original post about this.

I only walked it today...since I was geocaching afterwards, I had a Camelbak on with equipment in it and jogging with it on would have been difficult and irritating. I didn't get my best time but I was in the ballpark for what I normally can pull off while walking.

Second cache found in cemetery

Location of fourth cache

Overall, it was a great day full of exercise and geocaching adventure. I am so glad I found the link to the virtual, perhaps I can add this one to my list of annual virtuals I try to knock out each year in between my IRL ones.
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Nine Years Ago on In My Words...Geocaching Peeve

POTD Day 24 Your Space

Today, this was my space. I finally figured out the best place to park and get into the local college track for exercise. I was spurred to do this because there was also a geocache nearby as well.

I did 8 laps around the track and then 6 times up the stadium stairs...not running, just walking. Right around the time I was finishing up, the track teams showed up for practice so it was perfect timing.

We are having unseasonably warm and dry weather, and I was determined to take advantage of the sun and the warmth. I am thrilled to now know the details of getting to the track because it is a nice change up from the exercise I do from the house.

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50, with no flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and then added the fuzzy border.
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Six Years Ago on In My Words...Mission For Fitness

POTD Day 23 Bedtime

This is one of my favorite times of the day...I read for at least 30 mins every night. It is how I get my brain ready to sleep. I have never been one that can lay down and fall right to sleep. My brain runs and runs and reading lets me move my brain away from my day and focus on another world within the pages.

I have been doing this since I was a little kid...we had a bedtime, but we could "stay up" later if we were reading in bed. It is so much of a habit that even if I am up super late, I have to read for a just a few mins to get my brain and body ready to sleep.

For a short period of time, we tried doing the tv in the bedroom before bed, and I found that I wasn't reading at all. I have a hard time concentrating on a book when tv is on. While we still have a tv in our room, we don't watch it before bed anymore...it is mostly there for times when one of us is sick, or if we are working on something in that room during the day and want to see it.

I took this picture of my Nook right before bed with one of the books I have from the libary on it. I used my Fuji Finepix f50, no flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border.
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Five Years Ago on In my Words...15 Books

POTD Day 22 Nice

This little munchkin is my cousin's youngest. He is a lot of fun. I took this pic at the park we go to sometimes after we have walked around the Grower's Market, so he can have some out of stroller time. There are volleyball courts there that the kids like to play in, and that is why he has sand on his face.

As many kids of his age, having a picture taken is completely normal and being able to look at it immediately is expected. He holds still, smiles and poses on cue. It is quite hilarious. His mother and I look a lot a like in our baby pictures so it is no surprise that her kids also resemble us when we were that age...it is fun to watch the progression as they get older and start to take on their own individual looks.

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50, no flash and probably no macro either. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color and light and then added the fuzzy border.
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Two Years Ago on In My Words...Silent Secretary Project

POTD Day 21 Blue

I took this pic today while out exercising. We are having unseasonably warm weather and I took advantage by not only getting some yardwork done but also going for a quick walk to burn off some calories. I was able to wear shorts and short sleeves, which was truly amazing and I am sure my body willl be thanking me for not only the exercise but also the sun on my skin.

The problem with unseasonably warm weather is that we have not even had close to the amount of rain that we need to have in order to have a decent summer. We had a very dry year last year (records) and so far this winter has been very dry too. We are actually back in Fire Watch/Warning because the forests are so dry around here.

Anyhow, this little pansy is the first flower I have seen, and while it might not survive the entire winter, it was fun to see a little bit of spring in the middle of January.

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash but with macro enabled. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for light, color and added the fuzzy border.
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Five Years Ago on In My Words...She Figured It Out

POTD Day 20 To Do List

This is the To Do List I created for our house that contains all the stuff that we have purchased for various projects that need to be accomplished before we can warrant buying anything else. As we get things done, I strike out the items and put the date next to it. I am a "checkmarker" and thoroughly enjoy every chance I ever get to make a checkmark on a list.

I even created the house blog so we could track our progress there and document our projects. Just one more list...LOL.

I took this image with the Windows Snipping Tool on my laptop, and then edited in GIMP 2.6 to add the fuzzy border.
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Four Years Ago on In My Words...A New Way To Look

POTD Day 19 Breakfast

A while back, I decided to change some of my eating habits and one of them was to get more protein and eat less processed food. I am not doing Paleo or Atkins...I still eat things have starch in them, but I limit what kinds of starches I get, and I try to minimize chemicals and processing.

One of those changes meant breakfast food. While I am a firm believer in eating breakfast and eating something not sugar filled, I almost always had some kind of bread with breakfast (usually a bagel or a English muffin) with a protein. Always a cup of coffee. When I made the changes, I took the bread aspect out of it for the most part, added fruit, and two glasses of lemon water.

So this egg white scramble and grapes is a typical breakfast for me. I try to mix it up a bit so I am not eating the same thing everyday and so I am not getting too many egg yolks a day either. Some mornings I have a protein drink, or an apple with almond butter but when I want something warm, I head to this egg white scramble.

I took this pic with my Fuji Finepix f50, no flash with the macro enabled. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border.
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Eight Years Ago on In My Words...Strange But Comforting

POTD Day 18 Happy Place

Beaches...gosh I love beaches! This pic was taken while collecting seaglass with one of my girlfriends while we were in Japan. Beaches have always been a calming and relaxing source for me. I love everything about the beach...the water, the sun, the waves, the sand, the seaglass...etc.

When we lived in Japan, we lived 2 blocks from the beach. I saw it everyday and now that I only see it in pictures, I miss it so much. Both times we lived there, we had to drive along the beach just to check our mail...we actually probably didn't appreciate that we had the beach there for the taking each and everyday.

It gives you perspective when you lose something you didn't realize was so important to you. These days, the beach is a 3 hour drive...thank goodness we have lakes and rivers to help with the withdrawls...

I took this pic with my Fuji Finepix f50, no flash, macro enabled. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and then added the fuzzy border.
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Six Years Ago on In My Words...Ocean

POTD Day 17 Tiny

Recently this fruit has become quite a favorite of mine. Family friends have posted YouTube videos showing the easiest ways to open and deseed a pomegranate. Eating it with a spoon is so fantastic compared to one seed at a time. You get this delicious mouth full of juice after the pop of the seeds...and it is lovely.

I ate half a pomegranate as a snack tonight and it was delightful and very good for me too!

I took this image with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash and with the macro turned on. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for light, color and then added a fuzzy border.
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Five Years Ago on In My Words...Fruit Bats Galore

POTD Day 16 Sun

We are pretty lucky in our weather here...we really only get clouds when a storm is coming in. Winters are clear and crisp...even if it is cold, the sun is usually out.

We do see a far amount of fog during the early morning and the evenings but that sun still shines through the middle of the day. Sometimes it fools you into thinking that it is much warmer outside than it really is...LOL. Like today, it looks like it is could be in the 50s or even 60s...but no, it is in the 30's...but the sun sure makes it look warm and fun out there.

This pic is from our back door looking across our back porch to the beautiful sunshine hitting the deck and yard. You can see the hammock that gets lots of use when the temps are a bit warmer...LOL

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash on our back porch in the afternoon light. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border.
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Eight Years Ago on In My Words...Two Suns

POTD Day 15 Black And White

I discovered these notebooks in college (read that as "forced to use"), they eventually became something I completely depend. I use them for all sorts of things other than just college composition.

I have one I use for my writing projects, one for my computer builds and settings, several that I have for my journals, another I used for my computer classes, or any other classes I take, one for keeping track of things about the house...etc. I have even an minature one I keep in my golf bag that I keep my golf log in.

They are awesome because they are bound so they don't fall apart like spirals do, they are compact and easy to transport. I get them in lots of colors and different exteriors but I still favor the standard black and white comp books most of all.

I took this  image with my Fuji Finepix f50, no flash, with macro turned on. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color and light and then added the fuzzy border.
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Four Years Ago on In My Words...Just Stuff

POTD Day 14 Three Things

Since moving on from electrical projects around the Bamboo Lagoon, plumbing has become my new "passion"...LOL. We had some substantial water damage a while back and lost a vanity in our lower bathroom.

So a new vanity has been purchased, but can't be completely installed until we get the floors redone. I want to do a "rough" install just to make sure that everything is going to fit before we commit to this particular vanity.

Well, on top of that, the faucet in the upper bathroom is almost shot, so I thought that putting the same one in there would be a great improvement. So here is the new faucet, a tub of plumber's putty and the faithful Channel Locks...

These three things seem to be filling my project days, and it is cool because I am always willing to learn something new.

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50 without a flash on the new vanity in the downstairs bathroom. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and then added the fuzzy border.
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Eight Years Ago on In My Words...And The Hits Keep Coming

POTD Day 13 Makes Me Smile

This pic is from a while ago, but it still makes me smile to see some of my girlfriends on Skype...we don't get to coordinate it often, but when it does happen, it is always a time filled with giggles and stories!

I actually have been slacking on the Skype scene, and I probably need to be better about it. I have it on both computers, but I don't normally turn it on, on the laptop, because it slows the wireless down a bit and I would rather be doing it on the regular PC. Unfortunately, I am not on the regular PC as much as I used to be, which is why I don't Skype as much as I used to.

Anyhow, seeing the group of girls here (even if we are out of focus and in questionable light) is loads of fun and we should definitely do it more.

I took this pic as a screen capture on my personally built computer running Win 7 with a Logitech webcam. I did edit it in GIMP 2.6 to balance color and light and remove names.
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Five Years Ago on In My Words...Trying New Things

POTD Day 12 Colorful

Cooking Thai dishes is one of my favorite things to do. Cashew chicken is a relatively new one to me, even though I have had the recipe staring at me for ages. Once I made it the first time, I was hooked. And now even if I am checking my calories, I can enjoy it over spring greens instead and still not feel deprived.

I love that the recipe I have calls for red bell pepper because it makes it so pretty and cheerful! This is one I can easily bring to bunco or family get togethers because it has no heat (chilli) to it at all.

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash but definitely macro turned on. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color and light balance and then added the fuzzy border.
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Four Years Ago on In My Words...Yummy In My Tummy (oh how I miss Coco Ichibanya)

POTD Day 11 Looking Down

Golfing is one of my favorite pasttimes. I am not good at it, but I still enjoy it very much. I haven't been playing that long so I try to get to the driving range when I can. For the last few years, the only time I really get to play is when I am visiting our grandpa in Nebraska but the driving range is still a lot of fun.

This pic is from my first trip to our local course and driving range last summer. We have a smalll 9 hole in our neighborhood even though our house isn't actually on the course itself. It is nice to have it so close, but somehow, I don't manage to get over there as often as I would like.

As soon as it warms up a bit, I plan to make it more of a priority since it is great exercise and really makes me feel good.

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color and light and then added the fuzzy border.
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Nine Years Ago on In My Words...Golfing

POTD Day 10 Man Made

In the winter between 2003 and 2004, my husband and I went to Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. We had both been to Thailand many times at that point, and were there that December to help one of our friends celebrate his wedding, but figured while we were there, we would see some of the parts SE Asia that we had never seen.

So we made a trip from Bangkok, Thailand to Siem Reap, Cambodia and stayed there for four days touring all of the Angkor Wat area. We found this awesome driver the first day and hired him to show us around during our stay. Heang was great and we had some of the best experiences, and most of them were off the tourist agenda. We visited almost all of the temples and surrounding areas that we could manage in the four days.

We filled up our camera cards up the first day or so and ended up finding a shop where we could offload to CD and then free up our cards for more pics. It took me months to get through them all when we got home and get them labeled correctly. This shot is one of the guardian statues along the North Gate of Angkor Thom. There were thousands of faces through the entire complex created out of stone, and the amount of work that must have went into all those temples is just mind boggling. It really is one of the wonders of the world, and we are both so honored to have seen it.

I took this image with my JVC GC-QX5 with no flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for light and color and then added the fuzzy border.
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Seven Years Ago on In My Words...My Towel Animals

POTD Day 9 Natural

There are these really cool trees in Portland that everyone calls Smoke Trees...I think the real name for them is Cotinus coggygria, and I am not sure the if the smokey look is considered the flower for the tree or not. I just know that they look pretty cool when they get all "smoked" out. It seems, if I remember right, that they are a bit of a mess when the smokey stuff drops down, but I never actually had one myself, just saw a lot of them around so I could be wrong on this.

Anyhow, this one was on campus at a school I was taking classes at and I really wanted to see how a macro of the smokey parts would look. I think it came out really cool, even though it doesn't resemble a tree or even part of a tree at all...it looks more like a galaxy to me, but that is okay, because I am completely fine with taking macros that are abstract and can be whatever you want them to be.

I took this pic with my Fuji Finepix f50, no flash but macro on. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color and light and then added the fuzzy border.
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Five Years Ago on In My Words...Solar Eclipse

POTD Day 8 Lucky Number

I don't think I really have a lucky number but the number 5 and variations of seem to show up a lot in my life. So I guess I would say that the number 5 is my favorite number rather than my lucky number.

Five was the first number I ever had when I started playing soccer and I seemed to end up with that number through much of my soccer career. My birthday is on the 23rd, which when added together equals 5. My first serious boyfriend in high school wore the number 23 on the basketball team. I tend to roll 5s well in bunco.

I don't know that the number 5 has helped me win anything before, except that it was on my back when I would win games on occasion...LOL.
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One Year Ago on In My Words...At Least One Thing

POTD Day 7 Upside Down

So I if you haven't notices, I like taking macros...I like the perspective of things from up close. The details that we miss when we don't look close enough at things. I also love the look of old metal or painted things. I have made two cards from images I have taken at an old fort in Washington State.

So this one is from a great wrought iron gate on the front of a family crypt at this awesome cemetery in Portland. We were out geocaching for the day and needed to find something on this crypt, which is one of the things that I love about geocaching. It almost always takes me somewhere I wouldn't have gone otherwise and to see something new.

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash but the macro turned on. I edited in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and to add the fuzzy border.
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Two Years Ago on In My Words...Geocaching Craziness

POTD Day 6 Happens Everyday

The image for today is supposed to be something that happens everyday, and I thought of a few things around the house that would fit the bill, but then decided that one of the big EVERYDAY things that comes up for me is enjoying the nature around this area.

We are lucky to have grown up and now be living in one of the most beautiful places. This particular pic is from one of our biggest rivers and the one that our valley is named for but besides this river, we have many others, as well as lakes, mountains, and forest. In fact, I am hoping to go snow shoeing at one of our National Parks that is only an hour and a half away.

Sometimes I don't have time to get out into the nature but I can see it all around me and sometimes it is just a matter of enjoying the nature in our very own yard...which is what I did today (yardwork...LOL).

I took this image with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash. I edited the image in GIMP for color, light and a fuzzy border.
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Thirteen Years Ago on In My Words...Seawall

POTD Day 5 Found

Today was a weird day. I woke up to hearing all the chimes on the porch clanging together. I looked out and the sun was out and there was no frost on the ground. I checked Weather Underground on my phone and it said it was 43 degrees out (which is unheard of at 7am in January here). So I got up and went out back to check our porch thermostat and it said it was almost 50 degrees in the shade. I was blown away...it was almost balmy.

I texted with my SIL who lives about 10 miles away and she was at 24 with fog and frost...25 degrees of difference in 10 miles with no real elevation difference. Crazy. Later in the afternoon we got close to 60 degrees so I decided to take advantage and turned off the heat for the house and opened up a bunch of windows to circulate in some fresh air. I also decided that I absolutely had to get a walk in for the exercise and to absorb some vit D from the sun.

I was able to go on my walk with shorts and a long sleeve running shirt. So I took this shot of my legs because I FOUND them today...it was the first time they have seen the sun in weeks and it felt great. I managed to get in 60 walking lunges too so I will be feeling some muscles tomorrow. I wasn't even 1/2 mile into the walk and was feeling all the benefits of the vigorous exercise as well as the sunshine...it was amazing!

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash in the afternoon sun on our pool deck (the only spot that still had sun for my photo idea). I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light, and added the fuzzy border.
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Last Summer on In My Words...Driving Some Balls

Runs For Cookies Virtual 5K

I saw this on one of my friend's timeline on FB and thought, why the heck not? So I am signed up to do another Virtual 5K on the 25th of this month....perfect motivation for me at this point. Let's just hope that it isn't artic outside that day since this one doesn't have a window of opportunity, just the day of.

This sounds like fun, and really the only requirements are that it needs to be 5K distance and you need to take some photos and post about it...sounds like something I can totally pull off...LOL

Today is such nice weather (given that it is January in the PNW), that I am going to do some outside exercise this afternoon and might even open the house windows for a bit to get some fresh air in here even if the temp is chillier than the house temp is.
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Last Year on In My Words...Storm Rising

POTD Day 4 Words To Live By

This word is the one word that directs all the actions in my life. Loyalty, consideration, love, and so many others stem from this word and what it embodies for me. I expect integrity from those I have in my life, and I hold myself to that same standard. I just don't have the time or the inclination to deal with anyone that lacks it.

On that note, this image is not mine. I found it on the web, photographer unknown, and then I edited it in GIMP to crop and border it. I wish I knew who the photographer was so I could credit them...it is a great shot.
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Four Years Ago on In My Words...Looking Back

POTD Day 3 My Town

I took this pic last year during a hike in the hills above our home town. It has a nice view of the valley and I couldn't resist. This was a new trail to me, and it smoked my ass...but it was a fun discovery and opened up an entire area of trails to me.

My hometown is situated in the valley between two mountain ranges which makes for some awesome weather and some beautiful scenery. We have a ton of outdoor activities due to the river, lakes, mountains and forests nearby.

In all the places we have lived in over the years, this valley has always been home and some place we wanted to come back to.

I actually took this picture with my Nokia E71 phone, and then edited in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and adding the fuzzy border.
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Seven Years Ago on In My Words...New Cabinet (that J made for our fish tank)

POTD Day 2 Begins With G

This is one of my favorite Stash teas...super yummy. Ginger has so many beneficial properties that having it built into a tea just seems reasonable. I generally have a cup of hot tea midday in the colder months and this one is terrific.

Stash is one of my favorite brands of tea...I have one of their herbals, but mostly I drink their black teas (Earl Grey, English Breakfast, Chai, Ginger Breakfast and Double Chai). I have some loose teas (Thai, Ocha, and some herbals) but these teabags are fabulous when I am just making a cup for me.

I took this image with my Fuji Finepix with no flash but macro enabled on our kitchen counter. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light, and added the fuzzy border.
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Eight Years Ago on In My Words...Gross!!

POTD Day 1 Lunch

Today is the first day of a new month of Picture of the Day...which means a new list located here at Fat Mum Slim's site. Lunch was an easy pic for today because I knew at breakfast time what I was going to eat since it was leftovers and needed be cleared out of the fridge.

This is laab gai which is a Thai dish that I LOVE to make. I tend to not make the sticky rice that is supposed to go with it because I am trying to limit the amount of starch I eat, but I have gotten quite used to just eating it with cabbage and cucumber slices...protein and veggies!

I can make this from scratch but tend to do it from ground chicken plus a packet of seasoning I get at my favorite Thai/Vietnamese ingredient store in Portland. If I can't get there, I have family that can get things for me and send them...

Today is the first day back on the fitness bandwagon and that includes logging food, watching what is eaten and getting at least an hour of exercise/house projects done a day. So after a week of not logging, I am back at it.
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One Year Ago on In My Words...At Least One Thing