Gratitude Project: Days 21-30

Day 21: Where You Sleep

Just keepin' it real here, folks. We do not make our bed. I know... for being such a neatfreak, one would think that would be important to me. Alas, it is not. Especially not when we wake up early and I'm 9+ months pregnant.

Day 22: Clothing

Attempting the creativity on this one. Insert the Ikea dresser from Ray's bachelor days.

 Day 23: In Your Closet

Pretty basic.

 Day 24: Gratitude

Pretty self explanatory here. Ordered from Three Sisters. Totally overpriced and totally worth every penny. My mom also bought me a necklace for my boys ready for Benjamin's birthstone and name... depending on which month he's born in. We're still assuming February, but sometimes nature has its own ideas. I have no problem owning two necklaces as they are different styles/designs. Can't get enough of my boys anyway. And in case you're wondering, "Benjamin" would not fit so I had to go with Ben. And no, I haven't decided if that will be his nickname as I just assume it probably will be.

Day 25: Artwork

This beautiful piece was created by Ray's cousin Helena a few years back. I believe it was right around the time we married. I've kept it since because I just love it. In California, it hung on our refrigerator but now that we don't have anything on our non-magnetic fridge, I just look at it from time to time.

Day 26: Transportation

Trusty Honda. We <3 you. We don't love the grimy, salty mess that Chicago winters coat you with, however.

Day 27: Daily Routine

Breakfast on-the-go is often Eggo waffles.

Day 28: Nighttime

On our street around 6 p.m.

 Day 29: Lights

I didn't really have a clue on what to choose... but figured I could use a little practice shooting in the dark with minimal to no light... aside from candlelight, of course.

 Day 30: Self Portrait

Obviously that mirror could use a wipe-down. :)

Fin.

Gratitude Project: Days 11-20

This has been more challenging than I imagined. My days usually go something like this:
1. Rush in the morning... grab breakfast on-the-go.
2. Work all day (unless it's an NST day in which I am at the doctor's office half-day and then coming home)
3. Get home around 3:30 and start my kick count which lasts anywhere from 3 minutes to 20ish minutes.
4. Rush to grab my camera to capitalize on the last remaining bits of daylight in the middle of winter.
5. Emails and dinner...
6. Husband time and collapse on the couch or in bed, likely with a book in hand.

Here's what I managed to scrape up for the second of three installments:

Day 11: Something Old

This Cloisonné vase given to us by Ray's grandmother in 2010. The picture is of General A.W. Vanaman, Gramie's uncle, approaching Lt. General Rawlings. The vase came from his military travels and Gramie inherited this piece and gave it to us as a family treasure. I wrote a bit more about this when we received the vase.

Day 12: Hands

 Another family piece. Ray's Aunt Ceil is a clay sculptor/artist and teacher. She created a beautiful piece for him of two hands. This is one of the hands that is displayed in our living room.

Day 13: Written Words

An encouragement card from my sister-in-law. She's amazing and seems to know just when I need the extra boost. This month has been super hard.

Day 14: Movement

Wow, I'm really craptastic at these movement shots. In my defense, it was dark out, we had terrible lighting with shadowing everywhere... and I didn't have any ideas.

I also made another one... with an inanimate object and some camera movement instead.

 Day 15: Technology

Ray took the reigns on this one. Weekend assignment.

Day 16: Animals

You all know we aren't really animal people. Well, scratch that. We're not pet people... but love wildlife. Unfortunately I couldn't get a cool shot of animal prints on our deck because the snow was fully melted and it was a challenge trying to find any squirrels or geese that are normally everywhere we go! We were also in Michigan and chose to utilize the lakefront and the copious amounts of birds. I added three here even though I really should've just narrowed down my options.

 If you can't have snow... sand is the next best thing!

 Not too terribly artistic, but the v-formation is something spectacular.

 Day 17: Memories

There are so many ways to go about this day's assignment. I chose a dish full of random shells, rocks and coins we've accrued in our marriage thus far. Surely the collection doesn't include all of our artifacts, but some fun items that come from our many hikes, beach walks, and adventures. The sticker is from Tahiti when we visited the French Polynesia and the islands within (Papetee, Morea, Bora Bora) on our honeymoon. Others are from hikes and various other adventures we've managed to find ourselves on. Being pregnant for nearly 18 of the last 24 months has really made me itch for a good, long hike up a really beautiful mountain. Alas, Illinois is flat as a pancake. The dish was given to us by my MIL-- it's Wendell August. She has lots of WA items and gifted us with a piece around the time we married.

 Day 18: Something New

New Woolrich mittens. My first pair!

 Day 19: Best Friend

That would be my husband.

 Day 20: Seasonal

Actually a "holiday" that doesn't make me all baby-sad. Of course I do get all worked up about making cute little valentines with my children... but it's not like Christmas or anything. Thank goodness that's over.

 Final installment coming February 19.

Gratitude Project: Days 1-10

I'm currently trying to learn how to work my camera. On manual. With aperture and exposure and shutter speed. Oh my. Needless to say, I suck at the process. Because I'm not self-motivated to complete tutorials just for the fun of it, I decided to jump on the bandwagon and try my hand at one of these photography projects. The whole point is to just get my hands on the camera and shoot... learning as I go.

Here are the products of my first 10 days. I'm new at this... it's going to take time.

Day 1: Favorite Food

Obviously, a burrito. Yes, I did bring my fancy Nikon into Qdoba to shoot countless photos of a burrito.

 Day 2: Smile

Since we're attempting to learn together, Ray wanted to tackle this one.

 Day 3: Happiness

Being married to my incredible husband makes me infinitely happy.

Day 4: Leaves

Our deck frozen over with few leaves to be found...

 Day 5: Morning Sky

If you know me well, you know that this task was the most taxing. I am not a morning person.

Day 6: Books

 Day 7: Something Funny

I struggled with this one. I received an email from a friend telling me that this image reminded her of our love story on the exact day of this project piece. Hence the photo.

 Day 8: Favorite Color

 Since it was the weekend, Ray also participated. He said his was far more creative. Mine would be my blue cashmere scarf outside on our snow-covered bench to show contrast.

His would be the grandpa pill container I purchased so that we could be better about taking our vitamins. One of the better $1 investments. As you can also see, he isn't very good about taking those calcium pills. ;)

Day 9: Inspiring Person

Short of photographing another computer screen image, I had no ideas on this one. Take the camera into church and photograph the pastor speaking? A.w.k.w.a.r.d. So instead, I schleped the Nikon into our favorite Jewish deli where we had lunch and took a photo of someone on the wall. A football star. Sure, he's inspiring to follow your dreams and such, right? But really... I wanted to highlight a Mr. Jon Voight in the picture next to him who apparently loves his pastrami on rye. Hopefully some of you remember the Seinfeld episode where George buys the wrong Jo(h)n Voight's car. Love it.

Day 10: Nature

A tree near the pond we often walk/run around near our house.

Installment II coming February 9.

What We Be Shootin' With

I've been meaning to answer a quick (haha. just wait until you see how long this post is. quick. please) question addressed to me after our Bahamas cruise. We have two cameras-- one is super cheap, and one is more expensive which we consider to be our "nice" camera.

The cheapie was purchased in February 2010, I can remember quite vividly. Our Canon Powershot S5 IS just bit the dust while I was touring the house we now own. Lens Error. It would not longer retract. We were in the U.S. at the time for our quick house selection and would be returning to Europe for another month. In that month, we would be visiting Switzerland and Hamburg and wanted to have a camera for the rest of our European living experience. With very little time to spare and no time to research prior to purchasing a nice new camera, we opted for the cheapest one we could find at Best Buy right before they closed. We've had that camera, that $75 including-tax camera, for over a year now. It has almost outlasted that stupid Canon Powershot S5 IS that cost 6 times the amount.

Our "nice" camera {for two people who do not claim to be photographers} is the Nikon D3100. We also bought another lens so we can take fancier shots from far away... along with some other gadgets I'm not cool enough to understand. Anyway, we bought it for Andrew in November. We wanted to be able to take cute baby pictures. Needless to say, it's collecting dust in the fancy bag we bought for it.

So back to the purpose of this post. When we went to the Bahamas, I snapped some photos. I have about 1 hour of training under my belt via the video our Nikon came with. Other than that, I'm an absolute novice. My husband used to work for a dot-com in LA (between Air Force and his current position here in IL) that specialized in running all the editing/sales/distribution for professional photographers. There were some super talented folks there and one in particular who shot our entire wedding... so we know some talented folks, but we are not among them in skill.

I'm pretty good at going off on tangents. We went to the Bahamas. I snapped photos. Here are a few again for your viewing pleasure.

These are my favorites among the group since I was attempting to use (except the last one-- husband gets credit) my 1-hour video training to take them. Now because I found it super interesting myself... which camera did I use?

Our cheapie:

Or our "nice" camera?

Well friends... it was the...

CHEAPIE! It just goes to show that in many circumstances (though super cool lenses with night capabilities, etc. definitely trumps...), it's the photographer and not the camera that is taking crappy photos. Something I personally learned myself. It made me a little proud that so many commented on the picture quality from my, no joke, $75 camera. Hooray! Imagine all the possibilities with a fancy-schmancy camera!

And an aside for the family since this whole blog was started for them to keep track of our lives anyway...  <3
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